


Hollow

by AuctaSinistra



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 02:32:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18274016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuctaSinistra/pseuds/AuctaSinistra
Summary: After Voldemort's defeat, Snape comes to Harry for help





	Hollow

Harry sat hunched at his desk, trying to make sense of the greying words he’d read a dozen times in the past hour. From time to time he picked up the cup of tea at his elbow, only to put it down again in disgust when the cold bitter liquid touched his lips. He knew he needed the break and should go ahead and make another pot, but some bloodyminded spirit refused to let him get up from the chair until something on the page in front of him made some kind of sense.  
  
He turned a page and cursed; he was a lot closer to getting up and fetching the firewhisky.  
  
Outside, the wind moaned, a constant low hum occasionally rising to a brief, threatening howl that made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle, though he didn’t know why. The house at Godric’s Hollow was safe. Better late than never had never meant so little, but it still meant something.  
  
Harry picked up his quill and underlined the passage, drawing a sloppy question mark in the outer margin. Hermione had been horrified to see the way he marked up his books, but to Harry books were tools rather than idols. He didn’t care what state the thing was in as long as it was useful.  
  
Not that his mountains of recent acquisitions were all that useful. But that wasn’t their fault. In the three months he’d been cloistered away in Godric’s Hollow he’d become painfully aware of how inadequate his education was when tasked with genuinely obscure magic. For this he supposed he had himself to blame more than Hogwarts — Hermione no doubt would be able to fathom all this mumbo jumbo about nexi and ley lines.  
  
“One year,” Harry reminded himself out loud. One year of trying to figure this out on his own before going either back to school or off to find experts. One year of his own — a paltry reward, in his own mind, for the hero of the wizarding world and two-time slayer of Voldemort.  
  
Discovering the focus of power at the house where his parents died had been a fluke, and as he was wont to do Harry turned that fluke into a purpose. When he turned to the firewhisky a little too often, late at night, he reminded himself of that. That he had a purpose, a good one.  
  
If he could just bloody figure it out, find a starting point, a way in to the dense maze of possibility he’d sensed (he snorted:  _like an ant sensing a descending shoe_ ) when he’d returned to his parents’ home.  
  
He picked up the teacup, set it down with a growl.  
  
“The great Harry Potter. You can save the world but you can’t fathom plain English?”  
  
But then, he wondered if he’d really saved the world either.  
  


* * *

  
  
“We’re sorry to lose you,” Kingsley Shacklebolt had said. “You’re a damn’ fine Auror.”  
  
Harry had tried not to wince.  
  
“Well, the hardest part’s done, thanks to you,” Kingsley had told him. “I don’t blame you for skipping the rest of the mop-up.”  
  
Harry’d gritted his teeth against the angry denial; what did it matter what people thought?  
  
“What are you going to do?” Hermione had asked, worried because she knew him well enough to see how unhappy he was.  
  
“Something that doesn’t involve killing people,” he’d said, not waiting to explain further.  
  


* * *

  
  
The record stopped and Harry paused, grateful for any distraction from his own feelings of inadequacy.  
  
He got up and turned the scratched old disk over. One of the few things that had survived the damage to the house was the small, heavy chest full of record albums he’d found under the stairs. He didn’t know if it was his mum or his dad who’d listened to the plentiful albums of Gregorian chants; that he would never know,  _could_  never know, desolated and infuriated him, when he let it.   
  
Harry restarted the record with a tiny, sour smile. He had a growing mental file of things not to think about.   
  
He turned to face the comfortably plain study, within equal reach of his cold cup of tea and the cupboard where he kept the firewhisky. He was a month into actually keeping track of how much he drank. He did have some discipline, despite what some former teachers believed.  
  
Yet another thought to file away. He wondered if that was the point of Dumbledore’s pensieve, but didn’t even consider pulling it out; that would be admitting to the kinds of failures he wasn’t prepared to admit to.  
  
Harry sat back down with a sigh, pushed the cold tea away, and picked up his quill.  
  
A gust ripped a cloud of leaves all at once from the oak outside his study window. They fluttered en masse against the glass, startling him into looking up.  
  
Brown spatters fell away and headlights washed in a curve across the cold black panes. The light shifted in the familiar pattern of a car coming over the slight rise that divided the road to the village from the lane leading to the house, and Harry got up.  
  
His birthplace was a small country house with a few acres of pasture and woodland about a mile from the muggle village of the same name, a village he limped to once or twice a week to keep from becoming a fossilized recluse and to buy groceries, in that order of importance.  
  
In the three months he’d been here the only Muggles who’d come up the lane had been lost; the only wizards – Hermione and the twins, who had his passwords – didn’t use the lane, but apparated.  
  
Berating himself for his patheticness in welcoming the distraction, Harry got up and went to the front door. A spiderweb across the jamb stretched and tore as he opened it, reminding him how long it had been since he’d used it.   
  
He sucked in a breath of the crisp wintry wind that swirled over him as he stepped onto the flagged porch, stopping to let his eyes adjust to the dark.   
  
A square burly man, a farmer he knew on sight from the village, stood at the gate. Seeing Harry, he lifted one hand in a casual wave, and Harry crunched out over the damp, half-frozen grass. The man’s truck, an old import, was parked behind him, the engine still running.  
  
“Evening. Sorry to bother you this late.”  
  
“It’s all right,” Harry lied automatically.  
  
The man’s eyes wandered over the outline of the house. “You’ve fixed it back up fine.”  
  
“Thanks.” The hard part had been taking his time so the Muggles in the area wouldn’t know  _how_  he was restoring the shell of his parents’ home.  
  
“Got something for you.”  
  
“What?”  
  
The farmer shrugged. “Some fellow. Found ’im in the road, about half a mile from your turn.” He nodded vaguely in the direction of the village. “Nearly ran ’im over before I saw ’im, what with the rain and all.”  
  
“What fellow?” Harry pressed, following the man around to the back of his battered little Toyota pickup.  
  
“No idea. I pulled over and went out to check on ’im, see if ’e was dead, tell ’im to get the ’ell out of the road if ’e wasn’t. He looked at me and ’e said Harry Potter.”  
  
Harry froze.  
  
“That’s you, innit?”  
  
Harry nodded. He slipped his fingers into his pocket and touched the butt of his wand, making no other move as the farmer flipped the tarpaulin back to uncover a long curl of wet black cloth lying near the tailgate.  
  
“Wake up!” the farmer called, saying lower, to Harry, “Think ’e’s drunk. Or sick.”  
  
The curl of cloth shifted, twisting, turning over to lift a white, strained face and lank, dripping-wet black hair.  
  
Harry’s hand knotted on his wand as astonishment and fury clenched in his stomach.  
  
Snape.  
  
The farmer took hold of Snape’s arm and hefted him into an upright position, all but lifting the astoundingly cooperative man out of the truck, where he stood trembling and staring expressionlessly at Harry.  
  
“Well,” the farmer said briskly. “That’s that, then. I’ll just be off.” He hovered a moment as if expecting thanks, then shrugged and climbed back into the little pickup, rattling off up the muddy lane toward the road.  
  
Harry’s eyes slid back to Snape. Neither wizard moved until a distant flash of lightning and rumble of thunder disturbed the air.  
  
Harry pulled out his wand and did a quick casting over Snape, not missing his flinch.   
  
“ _Revelaropericulum!_ ” It did nothing to improve his mood recalling that it was Snape who had taught him the spell to detect dangerous hidden curses or items.  
  
The casting danced over Snape’s form, a twining rope of blue light that flashed its information, then vanished to a faint red afterimage.   
  
Harry said, surprised, “Where’s your wand?”  
  
“Gone.” The word, barely audible, came out on a tiny huff of silvery mist.  
  
Harry jerked his head toward the house. “Inside.”  
  
Painfully, Snape inched up the walk and into the hall. Lightning cracked again, nearer, and icy raindrops began to spatter down as Harry shut the front door. Snape waited, his back still to Harry, robes revealed in the hall light to be ragged and stained as well as dripping wet.  
  
Harry circled Snape — causing another, barely perceptible flinch — and led the way to the kitchen at the back of the house. The simmering anger flared in his stomach —  _why are you doing this?_  a question directed at the both of them — but he worked around it, putting the kettle on, pulling out cups and milk, working by rote, as if Snape were a guest, as if he were welcome. He had interrogated a fair few Death Eaters in his time as an Auror; the patterns of false calm and misdirection came back effortlessly.  
  
Snape finally made it into the room and stood blinking into the bright light. Harry gestured to the table.  
  
“Sit.”  
  
Snape did so, slowly, clutching the edge of the table with both pasty, bruised hands, his face twisting briefly as he made contact with the hard wooden seat.  
  
While the kettle heated Harry watched him, minutely, feeling his blank, incredulous anger turn cold. Snape’s eyes rested unfocused on the polished tabletop; he would never volunteer information — would never, Harry knew, make anything easy — but it seemed to Harry that in believing this man to be dead he’d been very nearly correct.  
  
Finally he said, “Will you live long enough to answer my questions or should I get a mediwizard from St. Mungo’s?”  
  
Snape raised his eyes, revealing the bewildered glaze of severe pain that Harry well remembered.  
  
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice cracked and shadowy. “Ask quickly.”  
  
The kettle went off, making Harry jump. He prepared the tea and filled a mug, liberally lacing it with milk and sugar; he had no idea if the man took either, but he looked like he needed the calories. When he turned to his guest Snape was again bowed, head hanging and eyes trained on the table. Harry sat across from Snape and slid the cup toward him.  
  
Snape wrapped his hands around it, clearly unable to summon the will – perhaps the strength – to lift it. He drew in a slow, pained breath and said, still staring at the tabletop, “You had questions.”  
  
Harry ran through the list in his head. “Most of them seem a bit stupid just now. You’re obviously alive, you’re obviously in trouble, and you obviously know I don’t trust you. Will whoever did this to you be coming here?”  
  
Snape drew the tea mug closer but still didn’t lift it. “I cannot guarantee that they won’t.”  
  
“Who?”  
  
“Bellatrix LeStrange. Lucius Malfoy.” Snape spoke as if before a court, reluctantly listing his pursuers. “MacNair.”  
  
Harry sighed, angry that some had got away despite the best efforts of the survivors of the final battle. It was true that they’d got most of Voldemort’s followers; that the aftermath had been a mess in every sense of the word; that those who’d escaped, predictably, were the cleverest and most powerful Death Eaters and only the smallest percentage of the whole. Still, it rankled to have got the job only half done. Not so much that he’d chosen to stay, of course.  
  
“Are you ... defended?” Snape asked softly.  
  
Harry smiled sourly. “Yes. I only asked because I thought whoever attacked you might give me some of the answers you won’t.” If it had been anyone other than Snape, the identity of his pursuers might have proven to Harry whose side he was on. He knew better than to assume anything about the man before him.  
  
Using both hands, Snape picked up the cup – it wavered – and set it down again. “Yes,” he said. “They could give you answers.”  
  
Harry stared at him, still dumbfounded and furious at the man’s gall, yet unable to reach for his wand. Snape stared back, chalk white, narrow eyed.  
  
“Why are you here?”  
  
“Because I wish to live.”  
  
“And if I decide to kill you where you sit as the traitor you are?”  
  
Snape hadn’t even the strength to sneer. “Then I expect I shall find that, once again, my wishes are irrelevant.” He blinked and his hands fell away from the untasted cup of tea.  
  
Harry scrambled up from the table, emotion overcoming his long-unused training. “I can’t fucking believe you came here after all this time. I can’t believe you came  _here_. We knew where you went before the last battle, you know. Dumbledore told the Order you’d gone to Voldemort.”  
  
Snape didn’t move, and Harry whirled away from the dead black eyes, furious again, already seeing the frustrated end of any interrogation he might attempt, seeing himself empty-handed and Snape silently triumphant. “Six months. Six fucking months, while other people did all the work, all the killing and the healing and the grieving and  _every fucking thing,_  and  _now_  you choose to show up at my god-damned home like a stray cat? What—”  
  
A wooden scrape-thump made him spin back around, drawing his wand.   
  
Snape lay curled on the floor next to his tipped-over chair, wet hair straggling across his face, one outflung hand stretched toward Harry, palm up, showing the fresh cuts across the white palm.  
  
Harry looked at the shaking tip of his own wand and cursed.  _Are you that eager to resume killing?_  
  
Harry levitated Snape’s motionless form upstairs, shaking in outrage that the man had the fucking nerve to impose on him like this – and strangely, infuriatingly honored that Snape, of all people, trusted him to do the right, the merciful, thing and not kill him outright. The word  _hero,_  in Snape’s voice, mocked him inside his skull.  
  
In his small, hitherto unused guest room (he had frequently danced around the idea that this room had been his as an infant, possibly the room in which his mother had died protecting him, and he rarely entered it), he paused, Snape hovering over the bed.  
  
One spell brought a bath mat to protect the sheets, another stripped the tattered robes and mud-encrusted boots from Snape’s body. Harry lowered the long white form to the towel and ran a diagnostic casting over him.   
  
Hungry to the point of starvation, dehydrated, his core temperature dangerously low, Snape also had two broken ribs and two broken fingers, both on his right side, along with the kind of bruising that suggested he’d been hit by a very powerful hex or possibly a small car. An assortment of other bruises and cuts completed the list of nonmagic injuries.  
  
Harry cast a warming spell over him, then sent a second spell skating over his body, staring blank-minded at Snape as the spell did its work.  
  
If the man had ever had any spare flesh on him, it was gone now, leaving behind only bone and a thin layer of wiry muscle under the bloodless skin. His hair was longer and greasier than ever – unsurprising if he’d been, as it appeared, a fugitive. He had a long cut, healing, across his nearly hairless chest. The bruising stopped at his hipbone; aside from various cuts and scrapes on his calves and a severely abraded left knee, he wasn’t damaged from the waist down.  
  
Berating himself silently for his squeamishness, Harry forced his eyes to Snape’s center. Even quiescent below the thatch of black hair, his penis was startlingly big, blushing with health. Of all of him, it alone looked alive, human. Virile.   
  
Harry looked away, disgusted at the warm twinge in his own groin, and waited for his second casting to tell him what, magically, was wrong with Snape.  
  
When it did, he shook his head in wonder, not incidentally shaking away the unwelcome pity. Then he set the broken bones with splint spells, sealed the worst cuts with stitch spells, removed the curses, covered Snape with a sheet and blanket, and shut off the light.  
  


* * *

  
  
Back downstairs, Harry glanced into his study and sighed sharply. He was ruined for further study tonight. Instead he poured himself a – well-deserved – glass of firewhisky and pulled out the stack of donation requests he’d been putting off. He swiftly divided them into piles:  
  
Squib Retraining Society: No  
  
War Orphans Fund: Yes  
  
Aurors Fund: No  
  
Hogwarts Scholarship Fund: Yes  
  
St. Mungo’s Benevolent Society: No (What the fuck sort of field mediwizards and mediwitches didn’t know how to reverse curses quickly enough to prevent permanent damage? Then, relenting) Yes   
  
Ministry of Magic Charitable Fund: A Great Big Fuck No  
  
Albus Dumbledore Memorial Fund (Hermione’s pet charity, for the benefit of those heroes of the final battle, like Remus Lupin, who still couldn’t get themselves acknowledged as citizens): Yes  
  
  
  
Harry went swiftly through the lesser requests, pleas from individuals who’d found out through the wizarding grapevine that Harry Potter was rich and generous and didn’t ask questions. At his side an Insta-quill jotted amounts and names and addresses on the scroll that would be delivered by owl to Gringott’s in the morning.  
  
When he was done he lifted the glass to drain the firewhisky, only to find it empty.   
  
The last time he’d talked to Hermione, the last thing she’d said to him had been  _why aren’t you as good to yourself as you are to everyone else?_  
  
He’d laughed.   
  
He laughed now and got up to refill his glass.  
  
Snape. Snape alive. Here. In his childhood bed. It was so many kinds of ironic it had to be true. Harry should never have believed Snape, of all people, dead until he’d seen the body. But there had been so much to do, so much to think about and not think about, after that bright summer’s day when Voldemort fell to the combined efforts of the late great Albus Dumbledore and the terrified Boy Who Lived. And lived.  
  
He supposed he wasn’t unlike Snape in that way.  
  
He could have let Snape die. If he’d done nothing, the curse someone – Bellatrix, probably, she was good at that – had hit Snape with would have sucked the last flicker of life out of him before sunrise. If not for that man from the village … Harry wondered who would have found Snape’s body in the road, come morning, and what they would have thought.  
  
He could have let him die – and the fact that that only crossed his mind now, afterward, made him feel oddly childish. As if Dumbledore’s ghost were standing over his shoulder, manipulative as always, forcing him and Snape together, forcing them to pretend to not hate one another for the sake of the cause.  
  
“There  _is_  no more fucking cause,” Harry snapped aloud. “I’m free to hate him if I want.”  
  
He got up and climbed the stairs, listening outside the door for a moment before pushing it in to look at the motionless lump under the blankets. The room was a little chilly and Harry automatically cast another warming charm. Then laughed softly at himself.  
  
“Hard as nails.” He inched into the room and stood in the faint moonlight from the window, looking down at Snape’s face.  
  
 _I never liked you. I never trusted you. Even when Dumbledore asked me to, I never believed in you._  
  
Snape shifted a little, a scowl creasing his pale brow. Harry held his breath and Snape twitched, as if dreaming of running. The twitching increased, coupled with faster breathing, and Harry considered waking him. He leaned closer and Snape jerked – Harry jumped back and caught a sidelong glimpse of a face outside the window.  
  
He whirled, heart pounding, and whipped out his wand.  
  
His own face reflected back at him. He swallowed his heart back into place, lowered his wand and recommenced breathing – becoming aware that Snape was now making small sounds of distress in his sleep. He cast a dreamless sleep spell over the man’s twitching form and waited until both of them had calmed down.  
  
Snape sighed, then, and turned onto his side, and Harry tucked away his wand, readjusted Snape’s blankets to cover him more fully, and shook his head at himself.  
  
 _I never believed in you, you bastard. But I wanted to._  
  


* * *

  
  
In the morning he looked in on Snape first thing (well, second, after the necessary lav stop).  
  
It didn’t look as if the man had moved, but he was still breathing, and, in the wan light sifting through the wispy curtains, his color looked slightly better. Harry left the room quietly, went downstairs and started breakfast.  
  
The occasional owl swooped in the open window over the counter as Harry worked; he sent off his authorizations and collected the day’s batch of pleas between checking the eggs and getting out the butter.  
  
When all was nearly ready, he dropped the bread into the toaster and went back upstairs. According to his calculations, honed through some months in the field as an Auror with the Hit Squad, Snape ought to be awake and feeling rather less like death warmed over and rather more as if he’d merely been hit by a garbage truck.  
  
He tapped lightly on the door, which was ajar as he’d left it, and pushed it open to see Snape sloppily propped on his pillows and peering at him in a combination of bleariness, discomfort and pissiness that Harry suspected few others could have mastered.  
  
“It’s about 8 o’clock,” Harry said. “How are you feeling? And I don’t ask because I care, so don’t bother being snide. I need to know if I missed anything last night.”  
  
Snape blinked at him. Seemed to collect his thoughts.  
  
“You ..?”  
  
“Me,” Harry said brusquely. “Basic Auror first-aid training. And a little nonbasic curse-reversal.” He met Snape’s unreadable stare levelly. “Another few hours and the  _siccarovita_  alone would have killed you.” He wasn’t asking for thanks, and Snape obliged him. “But I’m not a mediwizard and it’s possible I missed some things.” He drew his wand – noted that the flinch was restricted to Snape’s eyes this time – and cast another evaluative spell.  
  
Snape shifted himself a little more upright, his face screwed up with the effort of not making a sound. “I feel dreadful in a general sense,” he said once settled. “No specific dreadfulness or imminent death to mar your perfect record.”  
  
Harry’s spell confirmed Snape’s opinion, sans the sarcasm. “Do you think you could stand?”  
  
Snape’s eyes fell shut. “Not without a far greater incentive than your desire to confirm your healing talents. If you wish to throw me out, you’ll have to do it without my help, I’m afraid.”  
  
“I see your personality has healed more quickly than your body.” Harry tucked his wand away. “I liked you better nearly dead.”  
  
Snape opened his eyes, seeming to read on Harry’s face that he didn’t mean it. While Harry cursed his own inability to match Snape for general bastardness, the former potions master said weakly, “You are a member of a large club, then.”  
  
Harry asked, “Are you hungry?”  
  
Snape started to shake his head, considered, said, “Yes,” as though the admission hurt him. Harry realized that everything he did for Snape, every healing spell or cup of tea or sandwich, was like a slap in the face for the man who loathed him almost as much as he loathed asking for help.  
  
As he went downstairs to collect breakfast, Harry thought that that should have pleased him more than it did.   
  
Snape was asleep when he brought the tray upstairs. He stood at the foot of the bed, wanting badly to be angry but unable to do it while he could see the lines of pain and exhaustion on Snape’s face. Unwilling to examine why it disturbed him to see the man so frail, he cursed and took the tray back down to the kitchen.  
  


* * *

  
  
In the early afternoon, the monitoring charm he’d set told him Snape was moving about again. He went up, asked the man who was again crankily working himself into an upright position if he was hungry, and found himself shooed out after an irate affirmative response.  
  
Snape was examining his broken wand hand when Harry came back in, soup, bread and tea on a tray and the Daily Prophet under his arm. The former professor yanked both hands down as Harry entered, the scowl on his face shifting from faint concern to faint disdain.  
  
“It should heal fine,” Harry said casually as he set up the tray on the bedside table. “I thought you might want to catch up on what’s happening in the world. Later, that is.”  
  
He laid a napkin across Snape’s lap; though obviously surprised, Snape didn’t argue or fend him off. Harry set the tray on Snape’s lap and said, “Tuck in while it’s warm. I’ll come back in a few minutes.”  
  
He poured a cup of tea, fussing with it long enough to see that Snape was able to feed himself, then went back downstairs to wolf down a sandwich or two and stare out the back window at the ancient well that had been, until last night, the most frustrating thing in his life.  
  
 _At least you know it’ll still be there when you get back to work._  
  
He gulped down his tea and marched back upstairs, not looking forward to what he had to do.  
  
Snape was in the process of trying to set the tray on the side table without straining his injuries when Harry came in and relieved him of the burden. He had eaten all the soup and drunk all the tea, even making a ragged sort of dent in the bread, and Harry let that fact ease his discomfort about the upcoming interrogation.  
  
“I spoke to Hermione Granger today,” he began. “She works for the Ministry, in case you didn’t know. I asked her what your official status would be with the Ministry.”  
  
“You did … what?”  
  
Harry stepped away from the bed, held up a hand to Snape’s incredulous face.  
  
“I asked her what you could expect if you were to reappear from the dead, as it were, in terms of charges or harassment by the Ministry.”  
  
“You told a Ministry official that I’m still alive?”  
  
Harry nodded. “She didn’t know. She promised to look it up and get back to me as soon as possible. All confidentially, of course.” He knew that wouldn’t carry any weight with Snape just now.  
  
“Y-you—“ Snape’s white face flushed with anger. “What in Merlin’s name … you … did it not occur to you to ask me—”  
  
Having expected this, Harry cut him off without hesitation, his tone deliberately biting.  
  
“What the hell do you mean, ask you?  _Ask_  you? You came to me, for Christ’s sake. Unless I miss my guess, the only reason you’re not a wanted man is everyone thinks you’re dead.”  
  
Snape closed his mouth, falling back on the pillows, his eyes shifting, calculating, just short of panicked.  
  
“I told Hermione this was in complete confidence,” Harry repeated. “She won’t tell anyone else. Neither will I. Yet.”  
  
His emphasis on that word drew Snape’s attention back to him.  
  
“This is the part where you deny betraying Dumbledore’s trust,” Harry said. “Where you explain why you disappeared and never came back to help us during the final battle.”  
  
To his surprise Snape’s eyes closed, his adam’s apple working as he swallowed.  
  
“What is the point?” he said. When he opened his eyes, Harry wondered if the faint emotion, the bleak hopelessness he saw there, was only in his own imagination.  
  
“I have no proof for any of the words I might offer in defense of my actions. I might as well be as much a traitor as you believe me, for all the truth will serve me.”  
  
“You came to me,” Harry said. “You said you want to live. You’re going to have to defend yourself, and you might as well start with me, since I hold your life in my hands.” That that had been Snape’s  _choice_  ... Harry reminded himself sternly how cunning the man was.  
  
“Why did you come to me, anyway?”  
  
“Pettigrew.”  
  
“He sent you, did he?”  
  
Though he lacked the energy to snort, Snape managed to tighten his expression in mockery. “Posthumously? Hardly. No. I came to you because you did not kill him. You wished to. You had the power and the right. He deserved it. And yet you did not.”  
  
“So you think you deserve to die?”  
  
“It would perhaps be more accurate to say that I know you think so.”  
  
Harry pulled the cushioned chair out of the corner and set it next to the bed, sitting down and crossing his arms comfortably. He had enough experience to recognize this thin slit of opportunity as the only opening Snape would give him.  
  
“Change my mind.”  
  


* * *

  
  
“I had been working for some time on a special potion, something I had conceived years before but for which I could not obtain the ingredients or Ministry permission to experiment.” Snape crossed his hands in front of him, wand hand resting delicately atop the other, and kept his shadowed eyes on them as he spoke.  
  
“Only when the threat of Voldemort could no longer be ignored did the Ministry, under pressure from Albus, approve my petition.”  
  
“My last year ...” Harry realized, remembering Snape’s lengthy absences and excessively worn appearance. At the time he had thought it due to greater demands by Voldemort on his Death Eaters’ time and energies. “So what was this potion?”  
  
“It was meant to seem a vision-enhancing draught – something Voldemort had asked me often to invent, which I had long assured him I was working to perfect. He longed to see into Dumbledore’s mind, and had tried many methods without success. It had to appear to aid him in seeing his enemies’ plans while in fact blinding him, almost literally, to the genuine assault – both its time and its form.”  
  
“So the potion was a sort of double agent,” Harry hazarded. “Like you.”  
  
Snape considered. “It could be so viewed. Before the final battle Voldemort summoned me. I took the potion – not as certain as I should have preferred to be that it would work – and left Hogwarts. So far as I knew, forever.”  
  
“That day…” Harry remembered. “You were shut up with Dumbledore for hours. Then you disappeared. Everyone thought –”  
  
“Everyone was supposed to,” Snape said. “There were spies among the very students. Voldemort had to believe I was his if there was to be any hope of his trusting me enough to drink my potion at so critical a time.”  
  
Harry nodded, thinking back to the final battle outside Hogsmeade. One would think such a scene ineradicably burned into one’s memory, but the truth was after two years he couldn’t immediately call to mind every detail.  
  
“You weren’t there,” he said.  
  
“I was. Not within sight of the final confrontation between Dumbledore and you and Voldemort. I was up in the hills trying to look like a good loyal Death Eater until I could find a way to slip away. Bellatrix caught me at it just as you and Albus destroyed Voldemort. Her very natural and correct conclusion that I had betrayed our lord made her call for aid. I managed to get away in the melee that followed Voldemort’s demise, but …”  
  
“Why didn’t you come back to Hogwarts?”  
  
“With a trio of the strongest Death Eaters behind me?”  
  
“I mean once you lost them.”  
  
Snape sneered. “I never lost them, Potter, or at least never for long enough to feel safe. Do you suppose you see before you anything less than a desperate man?”  
  
Harry said nothing.  
  
“While in hiding,” Snape went on, “I saw the headlines. There were usually newspapers in the places I used to hide from my former allies. They left me disinclined to throw myself upon the mercy of anyone with any ties to the Ministry of Magic.”  
  
Harry couldn’t dispute Snape’s wariness. With Dumbledore’s death on the field of battle, there would have been no one to speak for the absent potions master. And plenty to speak against him.  
  
“And you never came forward after that because you were better off dead,” he remarked.  
  
“Precisely. The Ministry would only have to hold me for a few hours to give Bellatrix time to catch up with me. Wandless I would be no match for her.”  
  
“How did you find me?”  
  
“Those same newspapers that eventually tired of vilifying me never ceased their avid attention to your every move.” With evident discomfort, Snape added, “You should be aware that … they may come here.”  
  
“I’ve got my will wrapped around this house tighter than a condom,” Harry said. “No one will get in or out unless I want them to. That includes Bellatrix LeStrange and any Malfoy ever born.”  
  
“Braggart,” Snape said, almost proudly.  
  
“Paranoiac,” Harry corrected. “Even if I were inclined to brag, you’d be the last person on the planet I’d try it on.”  
  
Snape let his head loll on the pillows. “I never had any doubt that should your training ever equal your raw talent you would be as great as ever Dumbledore or Riddle were.”  
  
“Yet you were always mean to me.” Harry smiled.  
  
“I’ve kowtowed to enough great wizards in my life, wouldn’t you agree?”  
  
Just in time Harry bit down on ‘Did you call me a great wizard?’ Snape would flay him for it.   
  
“Did you want me to hate you?” he said instead.  
  
“I wanted nothing to do with you. By the time you arrived at Hogwarts I was sick to death of it all. But as always, I was given no choice in the matter.”  
  
Harry smiled again. “And yet, when you had a choice, you came to me.”  
  
Snape shrugged, the ease of motion returned with the absence of pain. “I’m many things, but I’ve rarely been stupid.”  
  
There was something disarming about that “rarely,” that admission of error, that made Harry completely unable to dissemble when Snape glanced down at himself and said, “One of the things I seem to be at the moment is naked.”   
  
Harry felt his face blaze and his jaw drop into his lap.  
  
“I think I can do something about that,” he said, stumbling to his suddenly very large and clumsy feet. “When you feel ready to get up.”  
  
“I suspect whether I’m ready or not, I’ll need to fairly soon,” Snape said.  
  
“There are ways around that,” Harry reminded him. Snape grimaced.  
  
“Not unless absolutely necessary, thank you.”  
  
Harry went to the door, feeling Snape’s steady, unfathomable gaze against his spine every step of the way. Then he stopped, turned.  
  
“You called him Voldemort.”  
  
Snape rolled his eyes. “Don’t be an idiot. I had to keep my mind focused on subservience while he was alive if I hoped to succeed. Constant vigilance, I believe Moody called it.”  
  
Harry nodded.   
  
“There is choice, and there is necessity,” Snape said.  
  
“Which was I?” Harry asked, his hand on the door. He was proud of himself that he didn’t bother to wait for an answer.  
  


* * *

  
  
Harry went back upstairs at dusk with another bowl of soup, tea and a small pile of clothing. He flicked on the light as he entered and Snape, his back to Harry, stirred.  
  
“It’s me,” he said as the man turned over and blinked at him.  
  
“Electricity,” Snape observed, his voice muddy from sleep.  
  
Harry fixed him with a level look. “My mother was raised muggle.”  
  
Snape didn’t make a crack and Harry relaxed. “I find the combination of magic and muggle devices works pretty well for me. I don’t lose touch with either world.”  
  
“Except insofar as you wish to,” Snape said quietly.   
  
Harry noticed that the newspaper on the bedside table was opened and well-riffled. He set down clothes and tray, and let himself be waved away irritably as he bent to help Snape sit up, liberally propped with pillows. This close, Harry observed that the man could use a bath; his scent was not actually offensive, but he was definitely pungent.  
  
Snape turned with a muted grunt of discomfort and collected the tray. Harry sat in the cushioned chair, pulled the clothes onto his lap and let Snape assuage his obvious hunger. At this stage he needed food and rest more than anything else, even a bath.  
  
After a quarter hour’s steady going, Snape put his spoon down and took a sip of tea. “I had no idea watching me eat was such a fascinating pastime. I’d’ve made myself a tent show and sold tickets.”  
  
Harry shook his head. “Sorry. I wasn’t. I was thinking.”  
  
“You were staring.” Snape set the teacup down.  
  
Harry nodded at the dark mark. “I sort of imagined it would go away when Voldemort was gone.”  
  
Snape turned his gaze to the mark on his wiry forearm. “It’s as well. Wrongs may be forgiven, but they cannot be made as if they never happened.” He ran his fingers across the mark and Harry shivered.  
  
When the black eyes darted to him at that sudden movement, Harry awkwardly held out the pile of clothes. “A robe. Trousers and a shirt. They’ll be a little big on you, and a little short. They’re mine.” He set them on the edge of the bed and Snape looked at them.  
  
“I hadn’t thought you one for basic black,” he observed.  
  
Harry smiled. “I transfigured the color. I thought you’d prefer it.”  
  
Snape arched a brow at him. “Mocking even in your thoughtfulness, Potter. I’m impressed.”  
  
Harry picked up the robe and laid it across the foot of the bed. “If the only way you can be comfortable with kindness is if you imagine it cloaked in mockery, far be it from me to disillusion you.”  
  
“Don’t assume everyone is treated with the blind adoration to which you have been subjected.”  
  
Harry glanced at Snape. “Hm. Good point. It’s not true, but I can see how you might believe it. However, I wasn’t mocking you, and I think you know that.” He took the tray and set it on the bedside table. “I hardly need to.”  
  
“I notice with your typical arrogance you don’t dispute the ‘thoughtfulness’ side of my remark.”  
  
Harry smiled. “I assumed you didn’t mean it. Do you want to try getting up, using the loo?” He reached out to tweak the robe.  
  
“I’d best try it,” Snape said, so mildly that Harry had a flash of comprehension: the insults meant nothing – or, at least, little. They were a bit too well-aimed to have nothing behind them, Harry had to admit. But what if they were, rather than hate, defensive coloring, noises Snape made to fend off – what? Other people, or something inside himself he couldn’t bear to face?  
  
Harry got up and shook out the robe, trying not to watch as Snape threw back the blankets – yes, he definitely needed a bath – and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He sat there a moment, breathing shallowly, and Harry draped the robe around his shoulders, waiting. He knew if he looked down, he’d see…  
  
He looked down and flushed. Yes. Snape’s cock, hanging over the edge of the bed, dusky between his sparsely haired thighs.  
  
Snape moved – sliding his arms into the sleeves of the robe – and Harry raised his head, clenching his jaw, staring a hole in the innocuous blank wall beside the bed –  
  
“If you’d stand aside, Potter,” came Snape’s mildly impatient voice near his stomach. Harry scooted to one side and let Snape pull the robe around himself, then set a hand –  _not shaking, damn it_  – to Snape’s elbow.  
  
“Whenever you’re ready,” Harry said when Snape glared at him. “If you fall you may rebreak those ribs or your fingers.”  
  
“I think I can manage to take a piss without you holding my hand.”  
  
“More easily than if I did, I’d think,” Harry said. “But I’ll just see you to the loo, if you don’t mind. And even if you do.”  
  
Snape took a deep breath, signaling without words that he was going to try it. Harry put his free hand around Snape’s back and gave a heft.  
  
Snape stood, eyes closed.  
  
“Dizzy?” Harry asked, holding on. Snape nodded, breathing slowly and deeply.  
  
After a moment he nodded again, opening his eyes, and they moved carefully out of the bedroom and across the corridor. Harry noticed that Snape’s quick eyes took in as much of his surroundings in those few moments as possible, but that he never once looked at Harry.  
  
At the bathroom door, Snape gently shook him off. “I can manage.” One hand immediately went to the sink counter for balance as he walked slowly to the toilet.  
  
“Give me a shout if you need a hand,” Harry said with forced gaiety, pulling the door almost shut to allow the man privacy.  
  
“Very funny, Potter,” Snape called out, adding, just audibly, “The phrase ‘piss off’ leaps to mind.”  
  
Harry grinned, then leaned on the wall outside, not listening to the unmistakable sounds of a man relieving himself, not imagining Snape’s tall lean form curved over the loo, head bowed, his cock heavy in his hand…  
  
“Jesus…” Harry breathed.  _What is wrong with you?_  
  
The toilet flushed and he jumped, edging away from the wall as if it were somehow complicit in his thoughts.  
  
The door swung open. Snape leaned on the doorjamb and glanced down at himself. “Christ. I need a bath. I smell like fresh trollbane root.”  
  
“Oh, is that what it smells like fresh?” Harry asked. “If you’re willing to risk it, I’ll help you.” He nodded toward the tub, very much  _not_  thinking about bathing Severus Snape.  
  
Snape turned, gazing at the tub.  
  
Harry made himself say, “I just meant help you  _in,_  you know. I’ll go away once you’re settled.”   
  
Snape’s head whipped around, eyes narrowed, cheeks blotched with red. “You –“ His jaw snapped shut and the strange tension melted from his face.   
  
Harry shrugged. “You’ll sleep better for it.”  
  
“You needn’t sell the idea, Potter.” Snape glanced at the tub again, weighing Merlin only knew what issues, and Harry touched his arm with one finger.  
  
“Hang on.” He went to the closet at the end of the corridor and came back with an armload of towels, guessing they’d be needed, as water tended to go everywhere when sick and injured people tried to bath themselves. He came back, sidled past Snape, and spread the towels on rack and counter, then plugged the bath, turned on the taps, and closed the toilet lid.  
  
“Sit.” He waved Snape to the seat. “You can run it how you like.”  
  
Snape made his way to the toilet and sat down, watching as Harry pulled various soaps and combs out of the cabinet. He took down a bottle of bubble bath and almost laughed at the idea of Snape in a bubble bath, then shook his head and set it on the tubside. Snape would probably want the privacy it would afford, and at least it didn’t smell of flowers.  
  
When he was done he said, “I’ll be right back,” and left Snape staring at the slowly filling tub.  
  
He quickly tidied the spare room, changing sheets and blankets in anticipation of the clean body that would be lying there, a body he was not thinking about.  
  
When he went back into the bathroom, Snape was turning off the taps and the water was rich with spicy-scented bubbles. Harry fought down a chuckle, a chuckle that caught in his throat when Snape simply stood up and dropped the robe.  
  
Hair trailed inky black between pale shoulders, like an arrow pointing down the long white back to the cleft between the narrow muscled curves of his ass. The terrible bruising on his right side stretched wide, blue-black fingers around his back, making Harry long to touch, to lay his fingers in gentle comfort on Snape’s battered torso.  
  
Snape reached out his undamaged left hand to the wall to brace himself, and Harry snapped out of it, jumping forward.  
  
“Wait. Let me help.”   
  
Determinedly not looking, Harry grasped Snape’s arms and offered solid, stolid support as the man stepped gingerly into the tub and eased under the steaming scented water.  
  
Snape sank into bubbles up to his nipples – not that Harry was looking,  _damn it_  – with a heartfelt sigh.  
  
Flushed, aroused – mortified – Harry busied himself making sure soap, flannel and rinse spout were within easy reach.  
  
“A hot bath, and Harry Potter as my attendant,” Snape purred. “There are those who would be rolling over in their graves.”  
  
Harry noted that Snape forbore to mention names, a Snapish sort of kindness.  
  
“ _Please_  do not try to get up without help,” he said nervously, visions of Snape slipping and cracking his skull lending severity to his tone.  
  
Snape leaned back in the tub and closed his eyes. “At this moment, Potter, your wish is my command. Now go away.”  
  
Harry went.  
  


* * *

  
  
Three quarters of an hour later he came back.  
  
“God  _damn_  it.”  
  
Snape sat at the sink counter, wrapped in the robe and struggling to work the comb through his hair.  
  
“I told you to call me before you got out of the tub!” he fumed, well aware he sounded like an idiot, or, worse, a mother.  
  
Wincing as he yanked fruitlessly at the comb, Snape said, “You didn’t really expect me to do it, though, did you?”  
  
Harry opened his mouth, put himself in Snape’s position, and shut it. Snorted.  
  
“I suppose not. Jesus, Snape, if you’d fallen—”  
  
“If I had, I’d be the only one to suffer for it. But I didn’t, so why go on about it? You sound like Molly Weasley.” He lowered the comb with a huff of annoyance.  
  
“Give me that.” Harry snatched the comb out of Snape’s fingers and grabbed the mass of wet hair. “You’ve got a rat’s nest back here,” he observed.  
  
“Cut it off,” Snape dismissed the issue. “Cut it all off.”  
  
“Shut up and hold still.” Harry worked patiently, starting at the ragged ends. Snape growled but obeyed, leaning on the sink while Harry gently worked out the snarled mess and wondered if there was something symbolic about his gut resistance to just hacking it all off and forgetting about it. Then he wondered if he’d spent too much time reading and talking to Hermione; in his experience, second- and third-guessing his instincts only got him more confused.  
  
“I am an idiot,” he said out loud, so busy working on the hair he’d forgotten there were ears under it.  
  
“You should just cut it off,” Snape said, his tone tentative, almost wary.  
  
“No,” Harry said, feeling his face heat again. Snape sighed and shook his head.  
  
“Hold still, for Christ’s sake. I’m almost done.” He yanked an alarming handful of long black hairs out of the comb, tossed them into the rubbish bin, and ran the comb all the way through to be sure he’d got all the tangles, letting his free hand echo the long, gentle strokes, pretending it was just habit. Snape’s hair was thick and slightly coarse, tickling pleasantly along the skin of his palm. He lifted it and ran the comb underneath, just once, and Snape shivered.  
  
Harry looked up, meeting Snape’s startled eyes in the mirror.  
  
“Cold?” he said automatically, then cursed himself and let Snape’s hair fall against his back once more.  
  
Snape made a faintly affirmative sound in his throat and shifted on the vanity stool.  
  
Harry set the comb on the counter and Snape said:  
  
“My vanity thanks you.”   
  
“I do accept tips,” Harry said.  
  
Snape got up. “Since when?”  
  
“I meant gratuities, not advice,” Harry said, lightly grasping Snape’s arm above the elbow. “Back to bed, I think.”  
  
Another weak snort. “Yes, a round of basic hygiene is about all the excitement I can stand.”   
  
Harry stopped Snape at the bedside.  
  
“Do you want pyjamas?” it occurred to him to ask. And he blushed again.  _Damn it._  
  
“I’ll leave that to you,” Snape said, and Harry flushed even hotter. “I generally have not bothered, but if you feel more comfortable…”  
  
“I want  _you_  to feel comfortable,” Harry said, not bothering to distinguish between the kind of comfort he was referring to and the kind of discomfort he was experiencing.   
  
Snape threw off the robe and Harry muttered:  
  
“Exhibitionist.” He stared at the wall over the bed, trying not to be obvious about not looking, until Snape was covered. “I would have thought a man on the run would always want to be wearing something, just in case he had to flee in the middle of the night.”  
  
Snape sat up in the bed, bare to the waist, left hand gently massaging the right.  
  
“A Death Eater loses any hint of body modesty sooner or later, Mr. Potter.”  
  
Harry closed his eyes. “Jesus. Sorry.”  
  
“It was not your doing.”  
  
When Harry opened his eyes, Snape had lain back on the bed and was twitching the blankets higher, though the room felt warm to Harry.  
  
“I want to ask you something.”  
  
“Of course.” He sounded mortally weary. “Ask.”  
  
“What do you want from me?”  
  
Snape responded with a level stare that took Harry right back to his school years. Irked, he nevertheless faltered and explained himself.  
  
“I mean what specifically. You needed immediate medical care. I did that. You need a place to stay. Sanctuary. You’ve got it. But what are you going to  _do?”_  
  
His former teacher then bowed his head, rubbed his forehead with his thumb and middle finger. “I don’t know yet.”  
  
“The Ministry knows Bellatrix, Malfoy and MacNair are still alive. Can you – if you supply them with information they might be able to catch them.”  
  
“Perhaps. It’s unlikely the Ministry would forgive my perceived crimes, though, even if I handed them all three on a platter.”  
  
“No, but you wouldn’t be in immediate danger any more. We could worry about the Ministry after.”  
  
The rubbing stopped, though Snape didn’t look up. “We?”  
  
“I do still seem to be helping you,” Harry pointed out drily. “I know you’re not here for the pleasure of my charming and erudite company.”  
  
“Congratulations. I didn’t think you even knew the word.”  
  
“I’ve been doing a bit of reading,” Harry said. “If you have a headache, admitting it would be a fairly effective way to enable me to get rid of it.”  
  
Snape sighed. “Has it occurred to you that your absence might be all I need?”  
  
Harry got up. “Shall we test that, or shall I just bring you an aspirin?”  
  
Another sigh, softer. “Two. Please.”  
  
Harry grinned – then twisted the smile off his mouth in case Snape looked up. “Be right back.”  
  


* * *

  
  
“Harry,” Hermione sighed. “Please stop pacing. You’re making me nervous.”  
  
Harry stopped, raised his eyes from the well-woven carpet to Hermione’s concerned face.  
  
“Don’t you trust him in your house alone?” she asked, returning her gaze to the papers she was arranging across the broad gleaming expanse of her mahogany desk.  
  
“Not exactly. I don’t trust the stupid git to not take a header down the stairs or slip and break his skull in the loo.” He looked sidelong at her as he resumed pacing, but she was focused on the paperwork.  
  
“Well, I’ve looked and looked. There aren’t any written guidelines for what to do when a suspected former Death Eater who was cleared reappears. There’s really no mention of such a thing at all.”  
  
Harry snorted. “Of course not.”  
  
“His property was forfeit, of course, because he had no will.”  
  
“Property?” He stopped pacing.  
  
“An old house, ruinous. A few galleons and some potions ingredients.” She smiled. “He could always petition for redress, assuming Fudge doesn’t haul him before the Wizengamot.”  
  
“That’s too much to hope for,” Harry countered. “Fudge will find something to arrest him for, or arrest him for nothing if he can’t. He’ll have public and Wizengamot opinion on his side. They already think he was a traitor.”  
  
“Why don’t you just hand him over to the Ministry and let him deal with it?” she asked.  
  
“Because if he’s telling the truth he doesn’t deserve that.”  
  
“And if he isn’t?”  
  
Harry finally sat down in the chair facing Hermione’s desk. She had a nice office; a nice position to go with her brains and drive. And that rarer thing, compassion.  
  
Harry rested his elbows on his knees and stared down at his hands.  
  
“He has nightmares,” he said softly. “Nearly every night; the air vibrates with it, with fear. It’s probably just as well he doesn’t have a wand; he might hex the house down around my ears before I could wake him.” He glanced up.  
  
“Harry, we all have nightmares,” Hermione said, eyes still on the parchments she was riffling through.  
  
“Yeah,” Harry said pointedly. “ _We_  do. But I’d bet Bellatrix and Lucius don’t.”  
  
That drew a thoughtful stare. “Do you really believe Snape was working for Dumbledore the whole time?”  
  
Harry smiled. “And you were the one always defending him when Ron and I thought he was on Voldemort’s side.”  
  
“A lot of things changed that day,” she said, and the hard look came back, the one so out of place on her animated, lively face, the one that scared Harry more, sometimes, than the changes on his own face, or behind it.  
  
“Are you mad at me for quitting?” he asked, although he’d asked before.  
  
The hardness faded into concern, and Harry felt his chest unknot.   
  
“Of course not. You need to follow your heart, Harry. We all do. That just got harder. It would have done, even without Voldemort. That’s part of growing up. He just made things …” She laughed softly. “A lot harder.” Then a calculating look sparked in her eyes. “Is that what this is about, with Snape?”  
  
“Is  _what_  what this is about?”  
  
“You’re trying to … to atone for something?”  
  
“With  _Snape?”_  Harry snorted. “I don’t owe that fucker anything.”  
  
“No one said you did,” she said hastily, and Harry thought –  _including Snape. Maybe that’s part of why I am helping him; because he’s never even hinted that he deserves it._  
  
“I just wonder if you aren’t trying to … sort of turn things back, hold on to the past?”  
  
“If I were, it sure as hell wouldn’t be with Snape,” Harry said, though her words triggered discomfort – then inevitable anger – inside him. “Hell, I don’t even know if he’s telling the truth. It was all I could do not to piss my pants when Dumbledore and I attacked Voldemort. There’s no way I could’ve told if Snape had really dosed him with some kind of potion that made him more vulnerable.”  
  
Hermione sighed, tidying the stack of parchments. “I’ll keep checking, of course.”   
  
“On the quiet, remember,” Harry murmured.  
  
“But the odds are when he reappears, all bets will be off. The Ministry will do what it wants. The Wizengamot too.”   
  
Harry smirked. “I know. I think he knows too.”  
  
Gently Hermione said, “You could find out for certain if Snape’s telling the truth.”  
  
Automatically he said, “No.”  
  
“Harry, you know how clever he is. How he can twist words and …”  
  
 _“No.”_  
  
“Then you’re just going to take his word for it? And expect the rest of us to do the same?”  
  
“What the rest of the world does is up to them,” Harry snapped. “I’m not going into his mind without his permission. That’s supposed to be the difference between us and Voldemort.”  _And between me and my father._  
  
“And what if he is lying?” Hermione said reasonably. “What if all this is a ruse, and he plans to lead LeStrange and the others to you for revenge?”  
  
Harry felt his face stretch in a smile that didn’t seem to come from anywhere inside, a smile that pulled his six-month-old scars taut. “Let him.”   
  


* * *

  
  
When he got home he went to the study, hoping to get a few hours’ peaceful reading in before the next sniping session with his houseguest.  
  
Snape was seated at his desk, for all the world as if he were in his office in the dungeons at Hogwarts. The sleeves of the too-large sweatshirt Harry’d turned black for him were neatly rolled up; his right hand was splayed across the pages of one of Harry’s least comprehensible books on nexi; in his other hand he held sheets of Harry’s notes. Harry instantly was transported back to seventh-year NEWTs potions and Snape’s razored comments on his essays therein.  
  
Snape looked up as he froze in the doorway. As if Harry had an appointment, his former professor said:  
  
“Are you quite certain you don’t wish to return to the ministry?”  
  
Grateful for an easy question, Harry said, “Yes. Why?”  
  
“Or some other job that requires action rather than thought?” Snape crumpled a piece of parchment containing Harry’s notes in his fingers and flicked it into the rubbish bin next to the desk.  
  
Harry sighed, rolled his eyes. “So I’m not the world’s greatest scholar. We know that.” There was something oddly comforting, oddly right with the world, having Snape across a desk belittling him. Hermione’s question prodded the back of his mind and he hushed it fiercely. “You’re lucky you made it down the stairs without breaking your neck.”  
  
“There is a nexus here,” Snape said.  
  
“In the back yard. Where the well is.” Harry nodded toward the back of the house.  
  
Snape nodded. “That explains — or at least, may explain — some things that were a mystery.”  
  
“That was what I thought,” Harry said, and Snape gave him a surprised look. Amused, Harry thought, _I passed._  
  
“Why are you digging through my desk?” he asked without real anger, knowing full well he’d left his paperwork all over the place.  
  
“I came in to speak to you. Your —” Snape exhaled a derisive laugh — “efforts were in plain sight.”  
  
“I was in London. Visiting Hermione.”  
  
Snape froze – only for a second – and said, “And how is Miss Granger?”  
  
“Well enough.” Any more than that was none of Snape’s business. “She couldn’t find anything in the Ministry laws to help figure out what your status would be if you decided to resurrect yourself.”  
  
Snape didn’t seem surprised. “And if I decide not to?”  
  
Harry waited. “Yes?”  
  
“Will you bring me in trussed and tied, like a bounty hunter turning an outlaw over to the sheriff?”  
  
“Are you an outlaw?” Harry expected another parry, but Snape said:  
  
“I’ve already answered that question.”  
  
Harry crossed the room. “Then, to answer yours, I have no interest in doing the Ministry’s dirty work. That’s part of the reason I left. I was tired of ... of only doing negative things. Of killing and hunting and eliminating. It left me empty, and I was tired of that. I wanted to do something positive.” He almost laughed at how that might be misinterpreted – as if saving Snape had become his goal in life.  
  
“Few will thank you for keeping me alive,” Snape said softly.  
  
“Dumbledore would have.” Harry sprawled in the big overstuffed chair by the window and slipped out his wand. “ _Effundero aqua vitae._ ”  
  
On the big oak dresser across the room, the glass stopper slid from the brandy decanter, which tipped a generous amount of amber liquid into one of the squat glasses beside it.  
  
“ _Accio calicis._ ”  
  
The glass of brandy flew at a sedate pace into Harry’s outstretched hand, and he sipped it, fully aware Snape had watched the entire process.  
  
“Am I your guest or your prisoner?” Snape asked.  
  
“What’s the practical difference?” Harry said.   
  
Snape’s soft exhalation might be called a laugh. “At this moment, whether I’m offered a drink.”  
  
Harry looked at him: narrow, pale, hawkish as ever. “Do you think you should?”  
  
Snape’s lips quirked. “That’s a yardstick I’ve never used. Any more than you.”  
  
Harry started to protest. Then set his drink down and jumped up as Snape pushed himself to his feet, delicately but without evident pain.  
  
“Don’t.” A gentle hand on Snape’s shoulder urged him back into the chair. “I’ll get it.”  
  
He went, poured a judicious amount of brandy into a glass, and turned. Snape sat staring at him. He brought the glass back and set it next to the book.  
  
“Thank you,” Snape said with brittle caution, while Harry marveled at how the simplest kindness terrified the man.  
  
“I …” Snape blinked, lowered his stare from Harry to the book. “I can probably help you with this.”  
  
Harry chuckled. “I expect you could. Why would you want to, though?”  
  
“Why are you helping me?” Snape challenged him right back.  
  
Harry trotted out the tired, expected answer. “Because Dumbledore—”  
  
Snape’s head snapped up, his eyes sparking in a convincing imitation of their old fire. “Sod Dumbledore. Dumbledore is dead. It’s entirely possible he died still trusting me, but you have never trusted me. You have never done anything but loathe me. So why are you doing this?”  
  
Harry considered him.  _Back on familiar ground, are you, Snape?_  
  
“Because every single time I thought you were the bad guy, I was proven wrong.” He let his serious tone sink in for a moment. “Every single bloody time. So I just thought I’d try it from the other side – just once – and see how it turns out.”  
  
Snape laughed – a harsh, almost painful bark of surprise.  
  
“Still marching to your own drummer, I see.”  
  
“Lucky for you,” Harry said. “One of these days I’m going to stop being wrong about you, Snape. Then you won’t have anything to hold over me.” He flopped back into his chair and picked up his glass.  
  
Snape laughed again, less coldly, shaking his head. “You win, Potter. I cannot hope to stand against the blinding gleam of your combined fool’s courage and unrepentant recklessness.” He lifted his own glass and saluted Harry before drinking.  
  
“I carry all before me,” Harry admitted. “But not on purpose.”  
  
Snape’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps you are not as foolish as I had thought.”  
  
“Did it occur to you that I’m helping you mostly because you knew I would?”  
  
Snape’s mouth twitched and Harry rolled his eyes as the implications hit him.  
  
“Christ. Even my wins against you are losses.” He drained the brandy and made a conscious decision against refilling the glass.  
  
“Don’t let it trouble you. I no longer keep score.” Snape set his own drink aside and bent his head over Harry’s book.  
  


* * *

  
  
In the dead cold predawn Harry woke to the tickle of magic against his eyelids. He slid his hand under his pillow and grasped his wand while his mind came fully awake, groping after the tendrils of that faint silvery thread. Weak but not distant…in fact, somewhere in the house, or it would not have awakened him.  
  
He slid out of the bed, wincing at the contact of cold floorboards against his feet, and grabbed his robe, slipping it sloppily over his pyjamas as he went to his door.  
  
Snape’s room was the obvious place to check first; easily done, as the door was wide open and the mussed bed clearly empty.  
  
Harry paused at the bathroom – also empty – before quietly descending the stairs.  
  
Light coming from the kitchen drew him to the doorway.  
  
Snape sat at the kitchen table, wrapped in the borrowed black bathrobe, a steaming cup resting on a saucer out of his reach across the table. He leaned on the table, the fingers of his right hand directed in a gentle arc toward the cup.  
  
Softly – between his teeth, Harry guessed – Snape said, “ _Accio_  teacup.”  
  
Harry again felt the tingle of magic. The cup and saucer shifted, clattered a little and stopped.  
  
“ _Accio_  teacup.”  
  
A sharper clatter and the cup and saucer jerked an inch toward Snape and stopped again.  
  
Snape cursed and lowered his forehead to one unsteady hand. After a moment he said tiredly, “I know you’re there.”  
  
Harry swallowed roughly and swept past, said, trying to sound matter of fact, “We’ll get you another wand.” He stopped, laughed wryly and turned around. “Sorry. That sounded like ‘there there, we’ll get you another puppy,’ didn’t it?”  
  
Snape stared up at him, shoulders drawn in, stiff.  
  
“What?”  
  
“You ...” Snape glanced at his own left shoulder.  
  
“What?”  
  
“You ... t-touched me.”  
  
“Did I?” Surprised, Harry thought back. “Oh.” He had in fact absently lain a hand on Snape’s shoulder, only for a moment, in comfort. If it had been anyone but him and Snape, he’d have called it a caress. “Sorry.”  
  
“No.” Snape shook his head, too rattled, Harry thought, for aplomb or sarcasm. “I — it surprised me.”  
  
Harry shrugged. “Me too.” He turned back to the counter, checked the teapot, found it full and hot, and poured himself a cup. “Don’t get discouraged. I neutralised three potentially fatal curses in you only four days ago. It’s a miracle you’re standing.”  
  
“I’m not standing,” Snape said, pissy.  
  
“Metaphorically speaking,” Harry went on as if he hadn’t heard, doctoring his tea and sitting at the table across from Snape. “Your powers are damped while your body heals—why am I telling you this?” Surely Snape was aware of such a commonplace bit of medicomagical knowledge.  
  
“To cheer me up,” Snape snarled.   
  
Harry chuckled. “How’s it working?”  
  
“Not so well as my imagining your demise.”   
  
Harry pushed the teacup into Snape’s reach. “You’ll have to do it by hand unless you’re willing to be patient. But then, I hear the personal touch is far more satisfying.”  
  
Snape, in the process of lifting his cup, paused to look at Harry over the rim, a look that belied any homicidal pretenses and revealed, for an instant, something that made Harry shiver and sit back in his chair, abruptly exposed and vulnerable.  
  
Snape shook his head sharply and buried his nose in the teacup. Harry got up, awkward, his own tea forgotten.  
  
“I’m going back to bed,” he announced.  
  
Snape lowered his cup long enough to say, “I’ll owl the Prophet.”  
  
“Prat,” Harry said as he stumbled out of the kitchen, feet cold and face blazing hot. He all but ran up the stairs and flung himself into his bed, pulling the covers over his head and jamming a knuckle between his teeth.  _What? What?_  echoed in his head, constant and ceaseless, not daring a moment’s pause to permit anything resembling an answer.  
  


* * *

  
  
“Try this.” A piece of parchment covered in tidy, elegant script appeared under Harry’s nose; he sighed, adjusted it, and shoved his glasses up.   
  
In three days they’d achieved a sort of minor-key harmony, based on the theme of Harry’s backyard nexus with occasional variations regarding Snape’s obscure Dark Arts skills and Harry’s own lamentable scholarship.   
  
Harry shut his dry eyes for a moment, listening to the susurrus of pages turning, of Snape’s quill scratching across parchment, until the record on the turntable started another piece of the piano music Snape had insisted on, metaphorically flinging Harry’s favorite chants across the room with the curiously amusing insult: “Medieval.”  
  
Harry’s only other contribution to this odd partnership was the occasional flash of insight or memory regarding his own innate resistance to Voldemort’s power.  
  
Well, that and the booze. Harry smiled and refocused on Snape’s notes.  
  
After a few minutes he marked his spot with a finger and lifted his head. “This is what I thought, too. How could it have enhanced my mom’s or my powers and not Voldemort’s?”  
  
Without looking up, Snape said, “Keep reading.”  
  
Harry did so. For a while. Then stopped again, “There’s a  _spell?_ ”  
  
Snape sighed, rubbed his forehead with one hand. “Harry. Read it.”  
  
Harry snapped his mouth shut, irked, and forced himself to keep going. Then he realized Snape had used his first name and he blushed like a fucking girl.  
  
 _Keep reading, idiot. You want to understand this, not have someone else spoon-feed it to you. Especially not Snape.  
  
Who just called you by your first name for the first time ever. Ever._  
  
He read for another few minutes, at one point blurting, “Who—” before shutting his mouth again.  
  
“Dumbledore, of course,” Snape said, still focused on his reading. “Nexi are rare; the spell hadn’t been used in nearly a century. He was the only living wizard who remembered it.” He sat back, stretched a little. “Where is that little book you had on power transference between animate and inanimate objects?”  
  
Harry nodded toward the shelves across the room, not wanting to raise his head while Snape was looking, in case he was still red. “Second shelf from the top, I think.”  
  
Snape crossed in front of him. Harry glanced up, smiling at the man’s bare feet protruding from the bottom of the trousers, a good three inches too short.  _Ought to get him some clothes that fit_  – Harry was appalled at his own thought. He stared blankly at the paper until he could clear his mind of both the idea and the horror of it.  
  
“What have we here?”  
  
By Snape’s sinuous tone Harry knew what he’d found – definitely not the little power-transference book.  
  
“I picked that up in France on one of my expeditions,” he said, not looking up. Then, realizing the obvious interpretation of that, he added, “My book-buying expeditions, that is.”  
  
“Wise of you to keep your business and pleasure trips separate.”  
  
“No need,” Harry said, pointlessly – nervously – smoothing the parchment on his lap. “There hasn’t been any of that kind of pleasure in a long time.”  
  
He expected another snide remark. Its absence made him look up to see Snape standing by the bookcase, the big book of erotic art balanced in his left hand, his right slowly turning pages. His posture and motion were arrestingly elegant despite the hand-me-down look of the man in Harry’s too-big, too-short clothes. Watching him peruse the big glossy tome, Harry felt a warm tickle of interest between his legs. Who would have imagined he would live to see Snape in his study, calmly browsing a book of gay erotic art?  
  
His voice languid in its distraction, Snape said, “I would never have figured you for…”  
  
“A homosexual?” Harry said tightly.  
  
“An art aficionado,” Snape concluded, glancing up from the book to catch Harry’s blush.  
  
“Prick,” Harry muttered. “I wouldn’t have either, but I saw it and … well, you can see for yourself.”  
  
“Indeed,” Snape said, still slowly turning pages. Harry found himself wondering which ones he liked, if any of them might get him aroused, and how he would look so. Flushed? Nostrils flared? That tight, sour mouth loose and sweet, softened by desire?  
  
Harry shook his head sharply, torn between laughter and alarm at the tight ache in his groin. He sprang up, clutching Snape’s parchment, and sought his drinks cabinet for distraction, if not relief. Snape didn’t look up as Harry poured, sipped, surreptitiously shifted his wand in its pocket, now a little too close for comfort to other hard items in his pants.  
  
Snape huffed out a laugh and Harry turned in surprise. The man was tilting the book a little sideways, a faint smile turning the corners of his mouth upward. Harry set down the glass, guessing which picture Snape had found, and moved around to the man’s side to confirm it was one of the more cartoonish and acrobatic sexual conglomerations in the book. He’d always found it more amusing than erotic, and it helped partially clear his fogged thoughts.  
  
“Like it?” he teased.  
  
“It’s most amusing,” Snape sneered.  
  
“But physically impossible,” Harry remarked. Snape glanced at him, one eyebrow arched, and Harry blinked.  
  
“Isn’t it?”  
  
The eyebrow remained elevated.  
  
Harry cocked his head. “Well, I bow to your superior knowledge, then.” He returned his gaze to the painting, battling a grin. “And flexibility. Wow.”  
  
“Insolent,” Snape murmured, turning the page.  
  
“You started it.”   
  
They stood shoulder to shoulder as Snape moved unhurriedly through the paintings, every passing second, every glossy, fiery picture, intensifying the heat, the danger. Harry swallowed drily, uneasily aware of his heart speeding, his skin thrilling. Standing next to  _Snape,_  looking at pictures he’d seen a dozen times before, he was hard, hungry, aching to press himself against the man, to inhale his scent, to …  
  
Snape turned the page to one of Harry’s favorites, a richly colored Persian oil of two ebon-haired young men, both prone, one languid atop the other as if both lay curled in post-coital content. Snape paused, ran a slow fingertip along the golden flank of one of the men, and Harry’s blood surged into his cock. _Jesus._  It was as if he were doing it on purpose.  
  
“Depraved,” Snape purred. He glanced at Harry.  
  
Who swallowed.  
  
“The record’s stopped,” Snape said then, very softly. Harry almost jumped.  
  
“Oh.” As if it were an emergency, he darted to the record player and turned over the wax disk, resetting the needle – wincing as he dropped it onto the disk – then clearing his throat, praying to any god that might listen for his voice to not betray him.  
  
“Why don’t we take a break?” he said. “It’s nearly lunchtime anyway.” He moved hesitantly for the door, realizing he was edging around Snape as if fearful of attack.  
  
 _Yes, but who’d attack whom?_  
  
Snape closed the book almost reverently, not looking at Harry. “If you like.” He smoothed one hand over the cover of the book.  
  
Harry fled.  
  


* * *

  
  
Harry trotted upstairs to his room, closed, locked and warded the door, and flopped on his back atop his bed with an explosive sigh of relief. Both hands moved to his aching cock and he fumbled his clothes open to grasp it, almost as if soothing an angry animal.  
  
 _Easy, there,_  he thought, smiling in anticipation of a nice leisurely wank or two.  
  
Over Snape.  
  
He let go, twining his hands together, refusing to masturbate with Severus Snape’s image before his eyes. Or scent in his nostrils. Or…  
  
Harry sighed and reflopped himself on the bed. What the fuck was wrong with him? Was he so lonely, so horny he’d be hot for anyone who’d been dumped on his doorstep? Crabbe? Malfoy?  
  
Harry snorted. Easy answer. But Snape … he’d just gotten over the conviction of Snape as his enemy by the time he’d left Hogwarts, but the conflicting emotions that remained never got resolved one way or the other. They still weren’t. Was he an unsung hero of the wizarding world, or the cleverest greasy traitor who’d ever lived?   
  
And how much were Harry’s desires affecting which of those he chose to believe?  
  
His cock pulsed at him, demanding attention, and Harry sighed and gave in. It was, after all, a simple physical release. It didn’t  _have_  to have anything to do with Snape. Even if it did.  
  
He accessed the monitoring spell – which he hadn’t used since the first day – just for an instant, to be sure Snape would not interrupt his … recreational interlude.  
  
His smile at his own euphemism froze on his face when he saw, in his mind’s eye, Snape, leaning back in the cushioned chair by the window of the guest room, his borrowed shirt pulled up, borrowed trousers open, his fingers delicately surrounding his rosy erection.  
  
“Oh fuck…”   
  
All Harry’s remaining blood surged into his crotch at the sight of Snape’s languid black-clad form, his hair splayed across the chair’s back, half-lidded eyes glittering as they focused on the white hand circling his upraised cock. Breathing heavily through his open mouth, Snape stroked slowly, careful of his recently healed fingers, and his left hand slid down the crease between thigh and groin to cup his testicles while his hips moved in gentle circles.   
  
Harry couldn’t feel or hear Snape through the link, could only see, but that was enough; rock hard and gasping, his eyes locked, unblinking, burning, on Snape as he released himself and raised his hand to his mouth, slowly and thoroughly caressing palm and fingers with his tongue.  
  
“Oh …  _jesus_ …” Harry grabbed himself and squeezed, one more lick away from coming, but Snape lowered his wetted hand and worked it over the blushing head of his cock.  
  
Snape squeezed – flinched a little – and brought both hands into play, one after the other along his flushed, ridged length, urging himself toward release. Harry groaned and worked himself hard as Snape squirmed in his chair, back arching, thin hips pumping into his clenching fingers.  
  
His right hand blurred over the head of his cock, and he threw his head back and came, spurting over his hand, over his pale stomach, and Harry exploded with a shout, his body pulsing in time with his cock until he shuddered into limp relief.  
  
When he could think again, the first thing he did was cancel the monitoring spell, knowing he should be mortified at himself, not for being turned on by what he’d seen, but for watching in the first place.   
  
Casting a quick cleanup spell on himself and his vicinity, he rolled over for a nap, his last, sated thought  _I’ll be ashamed of myself later._  
  


* * *

  
  
It came as some surprise to Harry that he was.  
  
His conscience barely allowed him to awaken before letting him have it.  
  
 _So much for all that noble crap about not invading the man’s privacy. Why don’t you use legilimens on him and be done with it, you fucking hypocrite?_  
  
He rolled over with a groan to see he’d slept about half an hour.  
  
 _Snape will never know.  
  
You know._  
  
Harry got up. Bastard conscience.  
  
He thumped downstairs, angry enough at himself that he was almost eager to confess, to face Snape’s fury, let it burn away the dirty feeling he had, not because he’d spied on Snape wanking but simply because he’d spied on Snape.  
  
 _Also, better to do it now, before he gets his wand and his strength back._  
  
Snape was in the study, a cup of tea at his right hand, Harry’s books spread about him on the desk, jotting notes. Just to tweak Harry’s guilt a little more.  
  
Harry’s stomach clenched when Snape looked up. He blurted:  
  
“I need to—”  
  
And his ward alarm went off, a gentle but unmistakable ping.  
  
Harry whipped out his wand and Snape got up from the desk.   
  
“What is it?”  
  
“Someone’s testing the wards.” Harry went into the hall and cast his wand over the surface of the polished hall table. The wood shimmered and shifted to an image of a big man in grey robes and hood, walking slowly along the tree-lined road near the start of Harry’s lane, long sleeves almost hiding the wand in his hand.  
  
Snape, beside him, said, “MacNair.”  
  
A coil of heat tightened in Harry’s stomach. He had reason to remember MacNair. Every time he visited the Weasleys and saw the hole MacNair had made in that family; every time he visited Ron’s grave.  
  
Snape grabbed Harry’s arm, so hard it startled him out of the memory.  
  
“Don’t lose yourself in anger,” Snape hissed. “You need your wits about you.”  
  
Surprised, Harry looked at Snape’s hand on his arm, then at the man’s intent, calm face.  
  
He nodded and Snape released him.  
  
“The floo’s in there,” he said, waving toward his seldom-used parlor. “If something happens, firecall Hermione at the Ministry.”  
  
He headed for the door.  
  
“Wait.” Snape caught his arm again, moving close as if fearful of being overheard. “MacNair lost the sight in his left eye at the final battle.”  
  
Harry looked at him, nodded, and went outside to disapparate.  
  
  
  
He apparated into a copse of trees a little north of the lane, where he could observe MacNair’s approach without being seen.  
  
The wards themselves were invisible, but he could feel MacNair testing them, measuring their strength. Every few steps the Death Eater would raise his wand and extend it and Harry fancied he could see the silver spiderweb of sparks spreading from the contact point between wand and wards.  
  
From where Harry stood he could see that MacNair would pass him on his blind side, heading for the little hill that his lane crested before winding down to Godric’s Hollow. There, off the main road and out of sight of any passing Muggles, would be the place to meet him.  
  
Nerves jangling – it had been a while since his last duel – Harry slipped toward the edge of the little copse of trees and reached out to his wards, allowing them to weaken temptingly at a spot just over the hill.  
  
MacNair moved nearer to that spot, his robes trailing over the damp grass, his wand up, testing, testing … and Harry tensed, wand tingling in his hand.  
  
MacNair came to the spot and stopped. He leaned forward and his hard, scarred face poked out of his hood as he lifted his wand to break through. He smiled.  
  
Harry slipped out of the trees. It was obvious MacNair didn’t see him at first, and Harry used those seconds to his advantage, but when he spoke his stunning hex, the Death Eater spun, whipping up his wand to cast a quick shielding spell. Harry’s hex splashed blue against the shield and he blinked at the splinters of light and power.  
  
 _So much for surprising him._  He immediately cast a blurring hex and moved, trying to keep to the man’s blind side as MacNair cast about, the tip of his wand red with destructive potential.  
  
“Potter!” MacNair snarled. “You bastard!” He cast a flame curse in Harry’s direction, missing by inches as Harry dodged and sent another stunning hex at him. “Stand and fight!”  
  
Harry shouted back, “Make me,” and cursed as MacNair again deflected his stunning spell. He avoided the area of burning grass where MacNair’s flame curse had hit and stopped at the low wood fence that lined the lane and marked the edge of his own wards.   
  
MacNair shook off the blurring hex and pointed at Harry’s head.  
  
“ _Avada Kedavra_!”  
  
Harry instantly cast the strongest block he knew as the bolt of green murder shot toward him. The spell hit Harry’s shield and he felt the sharp pain of it cracking, then the duller pain of impact knocking him backward into the fence, then onto the wet ground.  
  
MacNair hadn’t moved from his position, oblivious, Harry knew, to the wordless spell he’d cast along with his first hex. He faced Harry, probably ready to try the killing curse again.  
  
One palm flat on the ground, Harry shook his head, trying to clear it, and activated his latent casting. MacNair hesitated as tendrils of grass shot up all around him, twining with wiry strength about his feet – his legs – his body, in the blink of an eye.   
  
He shouted and raised his wand, awkwardly trying to direct it at the grass and not himself, and a long green tendril whipped out, snatching the wand from his hand and snapping it. Struggling, straining, eyes gaping with fear, he opened his mouth to try a wandless hex and more blades of grass snaked across his face, silencing him, covering his eyes and mouth and nose, leaving only a slit to keep him alive.  
  
Harry adjusted his skewed glasses and climbed carefully to his feet with the aid of the fence, trying to shake off the residual effects of his tumble. He kept his wand ready until the grasses had totally enveloped MacNair and there was nothing to be seen but a writhing man-shaped basket of living blades.  
  
Harry stood, wand upraised, and thought of Ron. Then very deliberately blanked him, and the red-hot anger that followed, from his mind.  
  
“ _Petrificus totalis.”_  
  
MacNair stopped struggling and Harry activated the spell that transported prisoners directly into the cells in the Aurors’ wing of the Ministry. He could have – in fact, ought to have – gone along to explain, but he didn’t want any more to do with it than necessary. Kingsley would know MacNair by sight, and would be able to tell who’d sent him. It was enough.  
  
MacNair disappeared and the enchanted grasses shrank wriggling back to their normal unthreatening length.  
  
Harry dragged in a shuddering breath, put out the patch of burning grass with an extinguishing charm, and disapparated, reappearing on his own doorstep.   
  
He put away his wand, grasped and turned the door handle, tripped over the stoop, and fell against Snape. The man caught him, sliding a strong arm around his shoulders. Breathing in, Harry tasted a strangely comforting cinnamony sort of scent.  
  
 _Your own laundry soap, idiot; he’s wearing your clothes._  He almost laughed.  
  
“Are you injured?”  
  
Harry shook his head. “Just dizzy. My own blocking spell hit me. He’s good.”  
  
Snape snorted and drew him into the house, pushing the door shut behind them. He eased Harry with surprising gentleness onto the bench in the hall and sat beside him.  
  
“You didn’t kill him.” It wasn’t a question.  
  
“I bound him and sent him to the Ministry. I don’t want to kill people. Not even Death Eaters.” Harry took another deep, tired breath, the tingling ache slowly fading from his body. “I mean, I  _want_  to, sometimes, like with him. But I don’t want to want to.”  
  
He expected Snape to misunderstand. Instead the man said, “It’s the same thing. Wasn’t Albus always wittering on about choices?”  
  
Harry nodded, staring at the black-and-white pattern of the hall tiles, inextricable, alternating opposites.  
  
“And that is why you’re here.”  
  
Harry turned and drew his feet up onto the bench, setting his back against the hard carven armrest. “I wanted to contribute. To do something positive. To give rather than take.”  
  
Snape was shaking his head. “Your definitions are a mystery to me.”  
  
“Everything about you is a mystery to me,” Harry retorted.  _Except what you look like when you touch yourself._  He felt his face burn.  
  
“You may count yourself fortunate.”  
  
Harry gritted his teeth, took a different sort of deep breath. “I need to tell you something. You might as well know, it’s … bad.”   
  
“Are you confessing now?” Snape asked. “To  _me_?”  
  
“No. I’m apologising. It’s just that, for you to know what I’m apologising for, I have to confess it first.”  
  
Snape turned a little to face him, arms crossed.  
  
Harry sighed. “And don’t get that look.”  
  
“What look?”  
  
“That look that says whatever I’m about to say is bound to be the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard and it’s a miracle someone as idiotic as me has managed to live this long. It’s hard enough, okay?”  
  
“I don’t remember soliciting this little interlude of soul-baring,” Snape began, but Harry held up his hand and, with a small huff of impatience, Snape sat back, raising an expectant eyebrow.  
  
“Um … well, I put a monitoring spell on you when you first arrived. Just so I’d know if you needed anything, you know, if you had a relapse or something.” He stopped, hoping stupidly that Snape would somehow divine his crime from that vague tidbit of information.  
  
Snape didn’t.  
  
“And so … I … um … I used it again. Today. ”  _Please don’t let me have to spell it out, god, please…_  
  
Silence.  
  
Squinting worriedly at Snape, Harry felt his insides plummet when he spotted the flicker of understanding in the man’s eyes, although Snape showed no outward reaction for a long time – seconds, really, but to Harry it felt like hours. Then Snape’s mouth twitched, just a little.  
  
Finally he said, “Are you telling me that after slaying the greatest Dark Wizard of our age, after hunting Death Eaters for two years … after going out there today and battling MacNair, not killing him despite that he utterly deserves it – after all that, you’re feeling guilty that you watched me masturbate?”  
  
Harry flushed painfully. “Well, I didn’t just watch.”  
  
He bowed his head, aflame with humiliation, and waited.  
  
Snape chuckled. Harry’s head snapped around.   
  
The man leaned forward, resting his forehead in both hands and vibrating with quiet laughter.  
  
After a moment he shook his head, glanced at Harry, and asked, “Did you enjoy it?” His tone was more amazed than amused, but he didn’t seem to be angry.  
  
 _Jesus._  Harry flushed even hotter, all over, and had to fight the urge to squirm.  _Fucking ground never opens up and swallows you when you need it to._ “Which answer won’t get me killed?”  
  
“What is that Muggle saying?” Snape replied, almost lightly. “’The truth will set you free’?”  
  
“That’s crap.”  
  
“Yes, it is.”  
  
Harry sighed. “All I wanted to say was I apologise for spying on you. I won’t do it again.”  
  
“Are you sure?”  
  
Harry looked up. Still not raising his head, Snape watched him, black eyes shadowed, unintelligible.  
  
“Of course I’m sure.”  
  
“No, I meant are you sure that was all you wanted to say.”  
  
Harry stammered for a moment, and Snape nodded and got up.  
  
“Excuse me.” He walked around Harry and headed up the stairs, while Harry sat wrestling with the familiar feeling that he’d just done something stupid.  
  


* * *

  
  
Harry sat in his pyjamas in the middle of his bed, massaging his foot; crushed in the final battle, it had never really healed (never really been healed, though he tried not to be bitter) properly, and though it didn’t hinder his movement, it ached if overstrained.  
  
That and the trio of scars on his cheek were the only outward signs of what the last battle had cost him. He’d lost Ron, Dumbledore, Neville, Luna and Hagrid, and a good portion of both his innocence and his optimism.  
  
So how was it that Snape could make him feel like he’d come out of it all relatively unscathed?  
  
And what was the appeal of that darkness to a man who’d turned his back on that world, who sat alone in his parents’ cottage and read old books and baked his own scones?  
  
 _What is the attraction?_  
  
Harry shook his head and stretched his leg, flexing the tight calf muscles. He got off the bed and went to his window, overlooking the moonlit back yard and the well and the mysterious nexus.  
  
Was it mystery that drew him, rather than darkness? Snape was a mystery, all right, except when he was being a bastard. But he was also just a man, and that was … disturbing.  
  
Three taps sounded at his door, which he’d left ajar.   
  
“Harry.”  
  
He turned to see Snape in the doorway. Before he could think he was moving toward him, blurting:  
  
“Professor, I’m really sorry—“  
  
Snape took a step into the room. “I’m not a professor any longer.” He was wearing the black robe; his damp hair indicated he’d had his evening bath.  
  
Harry shrugged, smiled. “Habit.” Then, “Um … did you want something?”  
  
Snape looked at him for a moment, a moment in which he seemed a lot closer than he was.  
  
“You … realize that Lucius and Bellatrix will probably show up at some point?” His voice was smoky, soft.  
  
“That’s what the wards are for,” Harry said, staring at him, trying to read the ephemeral emotions in his face. “Don’t be concerned. I’m not.”  
  
A faint, worried smile touch Snape’s lips and Harry shivered. “What is it?”  
  
Snape lifted his right hand, slowly, and Harry moved forward, unbreathing, as if beckoned. He was still out of reach when the hand knotted into a fist, and Harry stopped. Snape growled softly and spun on his heel, out the door and gone as if he’d never been there.  
  
Harry blinked, snapped out of it. “What the hell ..?” He yanked his door all the way open and went to the guest room, opening the closed door without knocking.  
  
Snape was pressed into the corner, his forehead against the wall and one fist upraised as if he were hammering on a door to be let in.  
  
 _Or out._  
  
“Severus.” It was the first time Harry could remember saying his name. Snape stiffened and turned around.  
  
Harry moved closer. “What is wrong?”  
  
Snape took a sudden, startling step toward him and snarled, “Kiss me.”  
  
After a moment of blank astonishment, Harry realized Snape was asking to be hexed. Literally asking it, expecting it, telling Harry he expected it, stating in those two incredible words the utter absurdity of the idea that anything else could come of their relationship.  
  
Harry lifted his mouth to Snape’s. His lips were cool at first, soft and slightly parted, inviting Harry to press closer, to taste the gap with the tip of his tongue. The bittersweet flavor there was so perfect, so  _Snape,_  that Harry closed his eyes and licked.  
  
Snape inhaled, a gasp of surprise, and Harry slid in deeper, meeting the smooth agile surface of Snape’s tongue with a shock that made them both start.  
  
Snape pulled back and Harry drew in a shaky breath.  
  
“Oh,  _fuck_ …” He realized Snape had a bruising grip on his arms, looked up into wild black eyes, and breathed, “Severus.”  
  
The hard grip eased and Harry pressed his advantage, pressed Snape back into the wall and reclaimed his mouth, deep, demanding kisses that allowed Snape only to accept, not respond. And he did, opening to Harry with a deep-throated sound of hunger that made Harry’s blood hammer in his veins. He yanked at the robe belt and slid his hands inside, across Snape’s heaving chest, sliding over the palpable ribs to nipples already peaked and hard. Harry teased them as he sucked Snape’s tongue, letting his lower body ease against Snape’s until he had him pinned against the wall there as well, Snape’s hard cock big and hot against his own …  
  
Snape snarled and yanked Harry back by the shoulders, face flushed and eyes blazing even in the dim light from the hallway. While Harry panted, Snape growled, “Off,” and pulled at Harry’s pyjama shirt. Knowing his shaking hands weren’t up to buttons, Harry pulled the shirt off over his head – and hot hands grasped his hips, sliding his pants to the floor and pulling him forward.  
  
Snape engulfed him.  
  
“Oh … Christ …” Harry shuddered and clutched at Snape’s shoulders for balance and  _oh god how does he do it so hard and god so tight …_  
  
And Harry looked down, slid one hand into the rough softness of Snape’s hair, clutched it and moaned and came, his body jerking helplessly, emptying into Snape’s hot sucking mouth.  
  
Vertigo swirled in his sated brain and he fell, hitting something soft – Snape had shoved him backward onto the bed. Gasping, tingling, he stared as Snape crawled along his body and knelt over his chest, throwing off the black robe, his balls swinging under his swollen cock at the motion.  
  
 _Fuck_. He was big. Harry licked his lips, eager and nervous. He felt around, grabbed a pillow, propped himself and reached for Snape’s hips, feeling the corded muscle flex as Snape leaned closer, bracing his pale arms on the wall over Harry’s head.  
  
Harry curled his hands around Snape’s ass and lifted his head to taste – not a delicate touch but a long, firm caress with his entire tongue that made Snape hiss and made his cock jerk. Harry glanced up to see Snape staring down at him, hair hanging about his flushed face. Harry smiled and licked him again, massaging the dark slick head repeatedly, until Snape thrust forward, urging himself into Harry’s mouth. Harry hummed his approval and opened as much as he could, and Snape filled him to the back of his throat, his silky cock sliding back and forth over Harry’s tongue as he rocked against him. Harry breathed in Snape’s rich scent as he sucked and licked and Snape groaned and pumped his hips, pushing Harry hard against the wall and burying himself deep in Harry’s throat.  
  
Harry slid his fingers up, between Snape’s thin buttocks to the sensitive crease. He stroked and pressed and Snape hissed again and thrust faster, faster, and he was so deep, too deep, and Harry tried to pull back, but Snape groaned and drove into his mouth and came hot and salty-bitter and Harry swallowed and sucked and swallowed, massaging Snape’s ass and balls gently as the man shivered and went gradually limp above him.  
  
Harry gulped in air as Snape withdrew from his mouth and slid down the wall, almost sitting in his lap, his sweat-damp cheek against Harry’s equally damp chest. He rested for a moment before lifting his face, grabbing Harry’s hair in a fist and pulling him into another tongue-fucking kiss that had Harry humping the air before Snape let him go and rolled off him.  
  
“Oh…Christ.” Harry tried to catch his breath, his heart still racing. “That was … good.” He chuckled weakly and glanced at Snape, slumped panting against the wall like Harry was.  
  
Snape rubbed a hand over his sweaty face, pushing the long black strands away, and looked at Harry, a long, unreadable look. Then he closed his eyes.  
  
Harry stopped breathing. Waited, afraid to ask but needing to know. Snape didn’t move.  
  
“What?”  
  
Snape shook his head and got up from the bed, sweeping up the robe and striding out of the room in the time it took Harry to sit up.  
  
Harry quickly yanked on his pyjama bottoms – wincing when he pinched his once-more-erect cock – and trotted into the hall, stopping when he saw Snape sitting on the bottom steps of the stairs, like a cat waiting to be let out. He descended slowly, prepared for Snape to get up and leave once he realized he was coming, but all the older man did was glance at him as he sat next to him on the step.  
  
Fractionally relieved, Harry sighed.  
  
“Look, don’t make too big a deal out of it. We – obviously we both have been … alone a long time. I needed the human contact.” He made no joke, not even to himself, about using the word in connection with Snape. “I think you did too. There’s—”  
  
“Will you  _please_  shut up.” Snape sounded almost desperate, and Harry found himself smiling.  
  
“You’re so horrified it was me you did it with you can’t face it. I understand, I guess. At least you didn’t throw up after. I – what?” For Snape was shaking his head.  
  
“Christ, Potter. Even you cannot – can  _not_  – be this spectacularly dense.”  
  
Stung, Harry said, “Guess again.”  
  
Snape briefly rested his forehead on his knees before glaring at Harry. “Merlin and Taliesin help us. You would be awe-inspiring if just once you’d bloody pay attention to what’s going on around you. The last thing I need or want is to do this again.”  
  
“Have sex? Or do you just mean with me?” Harry tried to not feel too offended. And failed. It hurt. Even though it was Snape, it hurt.  
  
“It has nothing to do with sex. My entire fucking life has been in the service of wizards more powerful than I.”  
  
Harry felt a sudden chill. “You didn’t … Jesus,  _tell_  me you didn’t—”  
  
Snape snorted. “God almighty. No, I wasn’t fucking Albus or Voldemort. I’m not referring to that. I just … thought I was finally rid of that … that damned compulsion to …” He shook his head in disgust.  
  
Harry thought for a minute. “All right, then. Um … no, I still don’t get it. I don’t want to be your overlord, for fuck’s sake. I … you … I mean …” He flailed a hand irritably. “Shit.”  
  
“Well put,” Snape needled.  
  
“I’m trying to say that –”  
  
“I  _know_  what you’re trying to say,” Snape said, surprising him. “But this isn’t about sex.”  
  
“Oh yes it is,” Harry countered sharply. “I understand that you’re … you’re drawn to power. To powerful wizards. And I’m telling you that your fear of becoming pawn to another dark lord – or nondark lord – is ridiculous directed at a man who bakes his own fucking blueberry scones and can’t even stand to hurt a Death Eater.”  
  
A pained laugh burst out of Snape.  
  
“I promise not to make you my minion.” Harry smiled uncertainly. “Does that help?”  
  
“Idiot,” Snape said. “I don’t know why in hell you would want me when you might have –”  
  
“Oh please,” Harry snapped. “Don’t hand me that ‘you can have any witch or wizard you want.’ You have no goddamned idea.”  
  
Snape gave him a level look. “No, I don’t.”  
  
His own position as pariah in the wizarding world vividly colored his words, and Harry nodded.  
  
“All right. But still. It’s not as easy as you may think. Or at least not for me. I’m a lousy hero when it comes down to it; I hate being treated like that. And … well, right after I left Hogwarts, I met a girl and …” He laughed. “And she was off to Witches Weekly before I even woke up. I went home, poured myself a cup of tea, and I was pondering the fact – well, the realization – that I was gay anyway, when I opened the paper and …” He glanced at Snape. “You might’ve seen the article.”  
  
Snape, staring at him, finally said, “No.”  
  
“It was a pretty rude awakening, But I kept trying after that. In my own heroic, powerful, completely fucked up way. But it just got too—” He paused, turning his face toward the wall. “Horrible. I mean, that was why I left the Ministry. I was sick of doing things I felt in my heart were bad, for a cause I kept trying to convince myself was good. At least I don’t have to obliviate my hand afterward.”  
  
“You obliviated ..?”  
  
Harry nodded. “Until I couldn’t fucking stand it any more. I still can’t stand it.”  
  
He got up.  
  
“Harry—” Snape clamped hold of his wrist and pulled him back down. Harry sat, hard, and Snape didn’t let go, turning his hand to look at his palm.  
  
“W-what are you doing?” Harry stammered as his half-erect cock pulsed into full hardness.  
  
“What does it look like?” Snape said softly, running his thumb along the side of Harry’s hand. “I’m changing my mind.”  
  
Harry held his breath as Snape lifted his palm to his lips and kissed. He kissed and kissed again, almost reverently, but with the slightest irreverent touch of tongue on Harry’s sensitive skin.  
  
“Oh … god … what the …” Harry whispered, and his eyes rolled back when Snape sucked his index finger into his mouth. His other hand groped upward, grasping Snape’s neck and pulling the two of them closer as Snape slowly sucked each finger until, if they had been cocks, Harry would have come five times over.   
  
Then Snape stood, pulled Harry to his feet, and said, against his gasping mouth, “I want to fuck you.”  
  
Harry twined both hands through Snape’s hair, said, “Oh,  _fuck_  yes,” and kissed him, brutal, bruising kisses, until Snape spun him around and pushed him against the wall, leaning on him to breathe into his ear, “Here. Now.”  
  
He yanked Harry’s pyjamas down and pushed his thighs apart, and Harry braced himself on the wall, shaking so hard it was all he could do to hold himself up. He felt Snape’s strong fingers on his ass, pulling his cheeks apart, then –   
  
 _Jesus Christ and great bloody Merlin_  … Snape’s tongue slipped soft and hot along his crease and his hips jerked, rubbing his cock against the wall. Snape worked him, long, hard strokes and deep tickling plunges into Harry that made him whimper and beg, saying things he couldn’t believe and driving him to hump the cold bare wall like a lunatic.  
  
“Fuck…” Harry groaned. “Please…”  
  
And it stopped. Then Snape’s body was hot against Harry’s back and his cock was hard against Harry’s opening. Snape murmured something and slid his arms around, one sure hand grasping Harry’s cock as he entered him, with a tingling glide of magic to ease the way. Harry cried out and trembled, and Snape held him, filling him, filling him, deep and hard, moving with slow, delirious focus. His arm tightened around Harry’s waist and his hand squeezed, and he panted Harry’s name into his ear over and over, and Harry came explosively, almost painfully, pumping over Snape’s caressing hand until he was empty and dazed. Then Snape pushed him into the wall and thrust once, twice, again and sighed a long low moan against Harry’s neck as his own orgasm took him, and they slid together in limp oblivion into a damp heap at the foot of the stairs.  
  
After a long time, Snape stirred, squeezed Harry against his chest, and said:  
  
“What if  _I_  went to Witches Weekly? After all, my reputation can be no blacker; I’ve nothing to lose.”  
  
Harry examined him for a moment; disheveled, his robe hanging half off his thin, scarred body, he looked heartrendingly human. “That’s not the kind of power you would want.”  
  
Snape snorted. “Presumptuous.”  
  
Harry took that to mean he was right. Then his stomach rumbled. He sat up. “ _Food_.”  
  
“I see you’re already starting with the evil overlord behavior.”  
  
Harry pushed off of Snape, levering himself upright and fumbling on his pyjama bottoms. “If you want a sandwich I’d suggest you don’t anger me.” He extended a hand and Snape smirked, but accepted the help.  
  


* * *

  
  
A faint cry woke Harry from a dream in which Ron was trying to tell him something. He sat up and looked at the clock as the image of Ron’s urgent face faded from his mind. It was 3:30. He heard the sound – all too familiar – again and got up, sloppily wrapping his robe around himself as he went to Snape’s room.  
  
He stopped in the door, hating it, hating that he broke into Snape’s privacy and pride every time, hating it all the more tonight, as if Snape would think he believed he had a right, after what they had done.  
  
The air in the room seemed to spark with magic, as if even asleep Snape’s defenses were active, trying to shield him.  
  
Snape cried out, “No!” and thrashed to the edge of the bed; Harry moved, catching the cold flailing arms and easing himself between Snape and the floor. He felt – in the sudden tension and stillness – when Snape awoke. The electric feel of magic in the air dissolved.  
  
“It’s all right,” Harry said automatically. “Another dream.”  
  
Snape went limp and Harry bodily pushed him back up onto the bed. Snape drew up his knees and dropped his forehead onto them with a shuddering sigh. Harry sat on the edge of the bed, a little behind Snape, and listened to his breathing calm.  
  
“Do you want to talk about it?”  
  
Snape shivered, but didn’t lift his head. “I’d rather be plunged headfirst into a cauldron containing your most pathetic attempt at potionmaking.”  
  
Harry smiled. ‘You could just say no.”  
  
Snape didn’t move. After a moment, Harry ventured to lay a hand on Snape’s bare back. And … Snape didn’t move.  
  
Harry rubbed a bit, and Snape didn’t flinch away.  
  
“Why don’t you sleep with me?” he asked then. He hadn’t said anything when Snape had failed to follow him to his room earlier that night, but he been a little … surprised.  
  
He felt Snape stiffen again under his gently rubbing hand. His skin was cold; he had no flesh to spare and the room was chilly without Harry’s warming spells.  
  
“It might help,” Harry said. “Sure as hell it can’t hurt. I can wake you without having to get out from under the nice warm covers.”  
  
Snape breathed out a weak laugh, shaking his head.  
  
“Come on,” Harry tugged gently then got up, not wanting to insist.  
  
Snape looked up at him, his nightmare still shadowing his face. When he spoke the attempt to sound normal was evident.  
  
“If you snore I shall hex you.”  
  
Harry smiled. “Feel free.”  
  
Snape slid free of the tangled bedclothes and got up, preceding Harry down the hall while Harry frankly enjoyed the taut motion of his ass as he walked.  
  
Snape stopped in the doorway and Harry bumped into him.  
  
“What?”  
  
“That isn’t … your parents’ …”  
  
Harry blinked. “Oh. No. God no. I couldn’t stand the idea of …” He shuddered, laughed. “No. There wasn’t much left of the upstairs anyway. All this is new.”  
  
Snape almost sighed. “Thank god.”  
  
“Come on. It’s cold.” Harry gently shoved him toward the bed. Snape slithered under the covers and turned to watch Harry remove his robe.  
  
“All of it, Potter.”  
  
Harry gave him a look. “Are you sure  _you_  don’t want to be the evil overlord here?” But he slipped off his pyjamas and dove under the blankets, clambering over Snape to get to the other side of the bed.  
  
“I’m never comfortable with my back to the door.” Harry explained at Snape’s affronted grunt.   
  
“It’s a useless unease considering how easily even a semitalented wizard could come through the wall.”  
  
“Oh shut up. I don’t shoot down your neuroses, do I?” Harry moved up against Snape’s back and they shifted around a bit before settling down.  
  
“Point taken,” Snape said, then, “You keep your wand under your pillow?”  
  
Harry mentally probed the delicate words, sensing some meaning beyond the obvious, but insight eluded him.  
  
“It’s always in reach that way,” he said, answering the surface words.  
  
Snape snorted and snuggled back against Harry’s chest. “You clearly have no idea of the things I plan to do to you in this bed.”  
  
Harry slid his arms around Snape’s body, careful of his still-bruised right side, and pressed his face into the man’s neck.  
  
“Be sure to wake me first,” he murmured. He sighed out a breath and let his tired body relax, bit by bit, sinking into the warmth of the bed, of Snape.  
  
“Pot—” Snape began, then, “Harry.”  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“Do you … believe me?”  
  
Wide awake again, Harry realized Snape was within easier reach of his wand than he was, and that Snape had no doubt known it.   
  
He kept his body relaxed, his tone neutral. “Do I need to?”  
  
He felt Snape’s chest constrict, heard the soft huff.   
  
“I suppose not.”  
  
He squeezed gently. “Good night.”  
  
“Good night.”  
  


* * *

  
  
When Harry got up the next morning, Snape was already gone, having left a Snape-shaped depression in the bed.   
  
Harry threw on his pyjamas and followed the delectable wafting scent downstairs to the kitchen, to be greeted with Snape’s back as the man did swift and ruthless things to a sizzling skillet full of eggs, tomatoes, onions, ham and other aromatic ingredients. Tea necessities and a Daily Prophet were spread on the polished wooden table.  
  
Harry poured himself a cup, sat down, and read the top headline.  
  
“’Death Eater Captured!’ Nice of them to take the credit.” MacNair snarled effectively for the camera before being whisked out of sight by Arthur Weasley and Kingsley. He sipped and read the Ministry’s self-congratulatory blather, reading between the lines that they’d got nothing out of MacNair, at least yet, about Malfoy’s or Bellatrix’s whereabouts.  
  
Snape opened the oven and used the spatula to scoop a handful of golden toast onto a plate, which he set on the table.  
  
“You know,” Harry said, sliding the butter dish closer. “I have a toaster—” He stopped himself at Snape’s brief glance. “Never mind.” Snape had probably never even seen one before; it was amazing he’d figured out the gas cooker as well as he had.  
  
Another plate, loaded with delicious-smelling omelet, thunked unceremoniously in front of Harry.  
  
“Mm, Looks great. Thanks. I didn’t know you could cook.”  
  
“Potions  _is_  cooking,” Snape said impatiently, setting a similarly loaded plate at his place and returning the skillet to the stove, where he spoke a simple cleaning spell over it. Harry hid his delight that the spell worked; Snape’s wandless magic was obviously growing stronger in tandem with his body.  
  
They ate with economical enthusiasm, Harry continuing to read the paper as he shoveled the excellent breakfast down his throat.  
  
“Says here he told them you were still alive,” Harry remarked around a mouthful of toast. “Hiding here.”  
  
“I’m surprised you haven’t received a visit from the Ministry this morning,” Snape said; the hand holding his teacup didn’t shake, but Harry saw that he held it more tightly than necessary.  
  
Harry drummed his fingers on the paper, looked at Snape. “Are you ready to blow your cover yet?”  
  
“I don’t believe so,” Snape said calmly, but his eyes were locked onto Harry’s face.  
  
“Then I think I should contact Kingsley and express my … um … dismay at MacNair’s wild accusations.” Harry gulped the last of his omelet, washed it down with the rest of his tea, and got up.  
  
“That was fabulous.” He brushed the crumbs off his pyjamas and Snape rolled his eyes. “Maybe today we can find that nexus spell Dumbledore used, d’you think?”  
  
“Anything is possible,” Snape said, refilling his teacup.   
  


* * *

  
  
They worked all morning, had sandwiches for lunch, and took a walk around the grounds after, together, by silent consent.  
  
“It is possible we’ll never find that spell,” Snape reminded him. “It was outlawed and the books containing it destroyed.”  
  
“Well, things have a habit of slipping through,” Harry said.   
  
Snape harrumphed softly. “True enough.”  
  
“I’m not ready to give up.”  
  
“What a surprise.” They trudged up a hillock, into the wind, and Snape scanned the bucolic, grey horizon. “What did you intend to do if you discovered the spell? And if you plan to say ‘I don’t know,’ be warned this is a perfect place to leave your body for the carrion birds.”  
  
Harry smiled. “I just want to understand it. You said you didn’t know all the implications. I want to know them. I want to know how much of my parents’ power, of Voldemort’s, passed into me or came from that nexus or … I just want to understand what was done to them and to me.”  
  
Not arguing that point, Snape said, “It was done with your parents’ consent.”  
  
Harry stumbled, his damaged foot twisting on a stone, and Snape caught his elbow in a strong grip, holding for a moment until Harry regained his balance.  
  
“I know,” he went on. “But it’s still … one more mystery. One more alien power inside me. I mean, what if, because of that spell, I’m somehow linked to this nexus? What if that means someone can affect or control me through some spell directed at it? Or some other nexus, since they’re all connected?”  
  
“Hm. From you that sort of thinking is positively Machiavellian.”  
  
“You don’t need to insult me,” Harry teased. “I didn’t just ward the house because I’m antisocial. I felt … I felt a connection to it. To the well, not the house. To the nexus, although I didn’t know what it was at first. I was drawn there.” He turned, nodding back down the hill toward the well. The house looked small and tidy from here. “But when I reach out … it’s so vast. I can’t get a grip on that kind of power.”  
  
“Elemental magic is … well, elemental. It is by nature huge and broad and difficult to control. Which is why most wizards wisely leave it alone.”  
  
“Dumbledore didn’t,” Harry countered. “So I need to know what it was he did to me. To my parents and me.”  
  
“And if this spell somehow saved your life at the cost of your parents’, is that a thing you really wish to know?”  
  
Harry didn’t answer as they walked on. He knew he didn’t need to. Then he wondered what it was that made him think Snape suddenly understood him that well.  
  
Back at Godric’s Hollow they had a cup of tea, then a shower. Together, by silent consent.   
  
When they returned downstairs an owl was waiting on the stoop outside the kitchen window. Snape passed by and went into the study while Harry took the letter and paid the owl, unfolding and reading it as he followed Snape into the study.  
  
“I’ve got another shipment of books at Flourish and Blott’s.”  
  
Snape pulled a dusty book out of a crate of recent acquisitions Harry hadn’t yet gone through.  
  
“You don’t have them shipped here?” he asked, sitting at the desk. Harry, who always blew the dust off the books, noticed that Snape simply set it on the desk. He also noticed that Snape didn’t sneeze.  
  
“It gets me out. And keeps unwelcome things out as well. I prefer picking them up in Diagon Alley. Can I get you anything while I’m there?”  
  
Snape smiled, not a pretty sight. “You are a truly dreadful dissembler.”  
  
Levelly Harry said, “You said you wanted proper robes that fit.’ They both knew Snape didn’t need them at Godric’s Hollow, that they were a step toward his departure. “The ingredients for more Dreamless Sleep.” He didn’t want to mention the wand. He didn’t like thinking about why, and he really didn’t like it that Snape didn’t mention it either.  
  
His former teacher nodded. “You realize I cannot repay you.”  
  
“I realize it,” Harry said in the same level tone. He grinned. “Although you could always…”  
  
One black eyebrow soared.  
  
“…fix another one of those fabulous omelets,” Harry finished.  
  
Snape opened the dusty book. “Good to know I’m still of some use.”  
  
Harry waved the note. “See you later.”  
  


* * *

  
  
Arthur and Kingsley were in Hermione’s office at the Ministry when Harry arrived.  
  
He hesitated, then made himself smile and move into the room, setting his packages down on the floor near the door.  
  
“Sorry to interrupt,” he began, as Arthur and Kingsley got up to shake his hand.  
  
“Not at all, Harry, not at all,” Arthur said warmly. “So glad to see you. We don’t see enough of you these days.”  
  
Harry gave the man a genuine smile.  
  
“Well done, Harry, this MacNair thing,” Arthur went on.  
  
Kingsley echoed him. “That was neat work, Harry. We appreciate it.”  
  
Harry shrugged. “I don’t know what he was doing in that part of the country, but I’m glad one more Death Eater is in custody.”  
  
Kingsley looked hard at him. “I don’t know why he came up with that nonsense about Snape being alive, at your house…”  
  
Harry shook his head. “Nor do I.”  
  
“But I’m glad you cleared it up for us straight away,” Kingsley went on. “It’s bad enough we have a few live Death Eaters still on the loose. We don’t need people thinking the dead ones are coming back.”   
  
He and Arthur laughed, nervously.  
  
Harry said, “There was never any proof Snape went back to Voldemort.” He glanced Hermione, behind her desk, her expression frantic.  
  
“Well, no,” Arthur said, determined to be fair. “But he did disappear before the final battle.”  
  
“Once a traitor, always a traitor,” Kingsley said.  
  
Harry looked up at the tall Auror. “That’s not what you said a year ago, when he was reporting to the Order about Voldemort’s activities.”  
  
Kingsley scowled.  
  
Hermione cut in, a trifle shrill. “You wanted to see me, Harry?”  
  
He leaned around the two men, smiled at her. “Not if you’re too busy.”  
  
“We were just finishing up,” Arthur said, touching Kingsley’s arm to urge him toward the door. “Harry, you really must come and see us. Molly asks about you often.”  
  
Harry again gave the man a true smile. “I will, Mr. Weasley – Arthur. I’ll come soon.”   
  
Arthur and Kingsley left, Arthur closing the door behind them.  
  
Harry waited the predictable three seconds.  
  
“Honestly, Harry!” Hermione burst out, on schedule as always. “What are you thinking bringing – him – up like that? Do you want to make them suspicious?”  
  
Harry sat in the chair Arthur had vacated. “Just testing the waters. He can’t hide forever.” He gave her a moment to cool down. “Any luck?”  
  
She sighed. “No. I have to admit I’ve been trying to do the same thing you just did. More subtly, of course.”  
  
“Of course,” Harry allowed.  
  
“The consensus is he went back to Voldemort. If he reappears, I can all but guarantee he’ll be arrested and charged as a Death Eater and a traitor. If he can’t prove he was still working for our side he’ll probably end up in Azkaban.”  
  
“There’s no proof he was a traitor,” Harry said.  
  
“There’s also no proof the other way,” Hermione said, adding, “I’ll do everything I can to help you, Harry. If he really isn’t a traitor, I’ll do everything I can to help him. But I need hard evidence. His past is against him.”  
  
“He was acquitted once before,” he reminded her.  
  
“He had Dumbledore to speak for him.” She sat back in her chair. “Now he doesn’t have anyone.”  
  
Harry said nothing.  
  


* * *

  
  
Harry left his packages in the hall and poked his nose into various rooms of the house, finding each empty. At last he went to the kitchen and looked out the back window, and the tiny knot of worry in his stomach dissolved.  
  
Snape sat on the stone bench beside the well, facing into the cold wind, heedless of the leaves scattered here and there on his person.  
  
Harry went out and crunched across the grass to the well, peering into it as he often did, as though expecting it to give up its secret for the looking. Nothing but blackness answered him, and after a moment he turned to lean against the rough stone.  
  
He regarded Snape long enough in the silence to realize the man had gained weight and color in the days – nearly a fortnight – he’d been at Godric’s Hollow. Neither of them, Harry thought in surprise, was quite as hollow today as he had been then.  
  
Snape said, “You do realize wand registry is automatic?”  
  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  
  
“The instant I replace my wand the Ministry will know that I am alive.”  
  
“Ollivander wouldn’t...”  
  
“The registry is automatic,” Snape snapped. “Ollivander has no choice.”  
  
“There’s no way I can get it for you?”  
  
Snape snorted a soft laugh, glanced at Harry, his hard face twisted with incredulity.  
  
“And you would, wouldn’t you?” Snape shook his head, once to make the point, again to shake wind-tangled hair from his face. “It wouldn’t work. The wand chooses the wizard as much as the wizard the wand. You could not select a wand that would function for me. In any event if I hope to live anything resembling a life I shall be seen sooner or later by those who have believed me, or simply wished me, dead.”  
  
Harry leaned on the well, thinking. Without a wand, Snape was nearly a squib; he knew the man well enough to know Snape wouldn’t let the danger of arrest or imprisonment prevent him from replacing it. Particularly while Lucius and Bellatrix were still loose, Snape’s survival depended on his magic, which depending on his wand.  
  
“Is there  _anything_  objective you can offer to support your story?” he said. “Anything you or Dumbledore might have left behind at Hogwarts? A note, the potion formula, anything?”  
  
Snape closed his eyes. “I thought I made that clear.”  
  
Harry started to press the point and Snape flared, springing to his feet, eyes sparking, his face tight with anger.  
  
“Don’t you think I’ve thought about it, Potter? If there were  _anything_  I might use to prove it, don’t you think I would tell you?” He flung an arm out, shouted, “Do you think  _this_  is what I  _want_? This fucking … half life? Hiding like a rat, like Pettigrew, in fear of everything?”  
  
Harry fought to not take it personally, knowing it had nothing to do with him. Snape’s demons, now, were on the inside. Harry knew how that felt.  
  
Snape sat again, alarmingly like an old, tired man.  
  
“I gave Voldemort the potion,” he said, as though testifying to a dubious jury. “And he drank it, But I have no way of knowing whether it worked.” He looked at Harry, bleak. “I don’t know.”  
  
Harry stared at him. “You … Christ. You really are just like me. All you want in life is to know you helped.” He laughed, leaned his head back and laughed into the chill winter sky. “And you never will. Neither one of us ever will.”  
  
He thumped down on the bench next to Snape, not touching him, and they stared at the well for a while.  
  
Harry said at last, “What will you do?”   
  
“As always, what I must.”  
  


* * *

  
  
The next morning, Harry leaned against the wall at the foot of the stairs, watching Snape descend, smirking at the silent caution the man employed until he spotted Harry by the front door. He paused, then the stealthy glide became irritable stomping on each step until he reached the bottom.  
  
Harry said, “I’m going with you. Don’t argue and don’t give me any shit about it.”  
  
Snape crossed his arms. “Why?”  
  
Harry rolled his eyes.  
  
“You didn’t say ‘don’t ask questions,’” Snape pointed out.  
  
“Because I want to make sure you don’t make a sudden run for it, back to your Death Eater friends, once you have a new wand,” Harry said sourly.  
  
Snape brushed past him, headed for the parlor and the floo therein.  
  
“I’m done running,” he said as he passed.  
  
Harry followed him, stopped him with a light touch. “Come on. We can apparate.”  
  
Snape glanced back at him. “You’re in a hurry to be rid of me.”  
  
“I just know how you’d hate to get your new robes all sooty.” Harry slid his arm through Snape’s, felt the tension there, and said gently. “It’ll be all right.”  
  
Snape snorted. “No it won’t.”  
  
They disapparated.  
  


* * *

  
  
They appeared in Diagon Alley, in the little alcove leading to the door of Ollivander’s. When Snape realized the precision of the apparation, he gave Harry an approving nod and opened the door. Both men slipped inside before drawing any attention from the few early morning passers-by.  
  
The front of the shop was empty, as dusty and dimlit as Harry remembered it. Snape went to the counter and gave the bell the lightest of taps.  
  
The mellow ding faded into silence, broken a moment later by the soft shuffling of Ollivander moving along the stacks toward the counter.  
  
The ancient wandmaker stopped when he saw Snape.  
  
“Professor Snape.” He took two more steps, saw Harry, and stopped with, if anything, even more surprise.  
  
“And Harry Potter.”  
  
He advanced to the counter, rested his gnarled hands atop it, and said, “And what might I do for two such … illustrious former clients?”  
  
“I find myself in need of a new wand,” Snape said, as casual as Lucius Malfoy flinging his cloak over his shoulder.  
  
Ollivander’s grey eyes settled on Snape for a long moment, and Harry moved closer, trying to read the old wandmaker’s expression.  
  
Ollivander squinted, held up one finger and poked his tongue out between his teeth. “I have an idea…” he began. “If you’d be so good as to wait here.”  
  
He shuffled back into the shop and Harry moved up next to Snape.  
  
“When?” he asked.  
  
“The moment the wand and I connect,” Snape said.  
  
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Harry said, low and urgent. Snape looked down at him.  
  
“If you have a viable alternative to offer, I’m willing to hear it.”  
  
Harry sighed. “God  _damn_  it.”  
  
Snape nodded. “My sentiments exactly.”  
  
Ollivander returned with a box. “I have a feeling,” he said, between soft panting breaths, as if he’d had to climb high to get them, “this is the one for you, professor.”  
  
“I no longer teach at Hogwarts,” Snape told him. Ollivander shrugged.  
  
“If you’d like to try it…” He fumbled open the box to reveal a long wand of light wood with noticeable grain, highly polished.  
  
Snape, his hand already raised, paused. “Is that rowan?”  
  
Ollivander smiled. “From Scotland, yes. Fourteen inches, moderately flexible, with a quicksilver core. A trifle unusual.”  
  
Snape glanced at Harry and exhaled a quiet laugh – Harry had no idea why – then took up the wand in his fingertips.  
  
The wand immediately began to glow with a soft silvery light. Harry felt the magic prickle like static electricity in his hair and on the skin of his arms.  
  
“Would you like to give it a test?” Ollivander said, with a self-satisfied smile.  
  
“I might as well,” Snape remarked, turning to look about the room for a subject. “I’m not likely to have much time to enjoy it.”  
  
His eye lit on Harry, who held up both hands. “Please, no jelly leg hexes. Not with this foot. I might break something.”  
  
Loftily ignoring him, Snape waved the wand over Harry’s head and muttered, “ _Levitatio bacilli._ ”  
  
Harry twisted about to see half a dozen boxed wands float from a high shelf and begin a slow, intertwining dance in the dusty air.   
  
With a flick of his wrist Snape sent the boxes shooting around the room like a quidditch team at a match, then popped them one at a time back into their proper places.  
  
Ollivander was smiling. Snape lowered the wand, his own face grave.  
  
“I seem to have found you a match,” the wandmaker observed, rubbing his hands together in triumph.  
  
Snape glanced over his shoulder at Ollivander. “Yes. Thank you.”  
  
Harry edged closer, keeping Snape’s back between him and Ollivander.  
  
“You haven’t any money, you know,” he said low, forbearing to add – yet – that he had brought enough to pay for Snape’s wand.   
  
Smiling faintly, astoundingly, Snape raised his left hand, surreptitious, and brushed his knuckles along Harry’s cheek.  
  
“I’m aware of it,” Snape replied softly. “I didn’t expect to actually need it.” He glanced past the dumbstruck Harry, toward the front door, then dropped both hand and smile and stepped back. “As it happens, I was correct.”  
  
Hearing the door chime, Harry turned to see Kingsley, Arthur Weasley, and four other Aurors he knew slightly barge into the shop. All of the new arrivals shot startled glances at Harry before attending to business: the quartet spread around the room, wands out, as Kingsley and Arthur confronted Snape.  
  
“Severus Snape,” Kingsley said. “You are under arrest.”  
  
Harry stepped forward. “What’s the charge?”  
  
“Harry,” Arthur hissed. “Stay out of this.”  
  
“I won’t stay out of it,” Harry snapped. “You have no grounds for—”  
  
“Harry!” Arthur said.  
  
“Surrender your wand,” Kingsley said.  
  
Snape smiled. “Technically, I have no wand. It hasn’t been paid for.”  
  
He set his new wand on the counter, where Ollivander picked it up in both hands. “I’ll just hold this, then, shall I?” he said. Possibly only Harry heard him.  
  
“What are you charging him with?” Harry repeated, louder.  
  
“Treason,” Kingsley said. “Against the Ministry and the entire wizarding world.”  
  
“On what evidence?” Harry pressed.  
  
“The Wizengamot will deal with that at the proper time,” Kingsley said. “Stand aside, Mr. Potter. This doesn’t concern you.” The quartet of Aurors inched closer, as if to physically restrain Harry, but Arthur Weasley held up a hand, and they stopped.  
  
“What are you doing here, Harry?” Arthur asked, anxiously.  
  
“Potter came in as I was attempting to make my purchase,” Snape lied coolly. “He has nothing to do with this.” The quick glare he gave Harry said clearly ‘stay out of it.’ Harry stopped, fuming with anger, his fists clenched to avoid drawing his wand. He knew as well as Snape did that a fight would only make Snape’s situation worse. He realized, too, what Snape had seen sooner – that it would be better if he appeared uninvolved, disinterested.  
  
“Shall we get on with it?” Snape said, eyebrow arched disdainfully.   
  
Kingsley motioned two of the Aurors forward and they took hold of Snape’s arms.  
  
Arthur, watching Harry’s face, said hesitantly, “Harry, I … we have to do this. It’s perfectly legal. We need to find out—”  
  
“Arthur!” Kingsley barked.   
  
Arthur jumped and rejoined the knot of Aurors surrounding Snape, glancing back apologetically toward Harry.  
  
Harry took a step toward them, involuntarily, then stopped himself. This wasn’t the time or place. He caught Snape’s eye, trying to silently communicate that he would find a way to help. Snape’s gaze – not betrayed or angry, but resigned – held his for a moment.  
  
And then they were gone.  
  


* * *

  
  
The heavy iron door creaked open and Harry got up.  
  
Arthur Weasley’s head popped out. “We’re about to begin, Harry. Come in please.” He pushed the door wide.  
  
Harry went in, stopping in the center of the theater-like stone room while Arthur went to one side, to a stair leading to the podium from which the Wizengamot dispensed whatever it chose to call justice.  
  
Harry had his own ideas about that, although the makeup of the council had changed for the better recently. He recalled the room well from his own trial nearly five years before; remembered feelings of fear, confusion and unfairness rose in him. But this time, thanks to a few years under his belt and the fact that it was someone else in danger, anger overrode those old feelings. He strode to the chair in the center, the chair with chains on it, and stood beside it, his hands clasped in front of him, listening to the startled mutterings and newspaper rustlings coming from the witches and wizards up in the gallery.  
  
Showing no reaction, he ran a confident-appearing gaze over the primary members of the council: Arthur Weasley; Kingsley Shacklebolt; Amelia Bones, now Minister of Magic, a stern but fair witch; Macaulay Crowther, whom Harry considered a pureblood snob of the Malfoy school; and Ainsley Divot, a round-faced, round-bodied man Harry had found to be a decent sort for all that he insisted his name was French and should be pronounced DeeVOH.  
  
Arthur joined the others, nodded at a few of the wizards and witches at the back, and shuffled through some parchments on the podium before him.  
  
He cleared his throat. “You’ve all had a chance to review Mr. Snape’s testimony.”  
  
Harry refrained from snorting. He’d read it frantically in the anteroom five minutes ago, anxious to know what Snape had said so he wouldn’t contradict any of it, and that only because Arthur Weasley had gone to the trouble to bring him a copy.   
  
“The Wizengamot will now question Mr. Snape to determine what we can of his sympathies and actions around the time of the last battle. As you can see, however, we have a guest.”   
  
“Not a guest,” Harry spoke up. “A witness on Professor Snape’s behalf.”  
  
Minister Bones nodded. “So be it. Bring in the accused.”  
  
It was clear, when they brought Snape in, that he wasn’t expecting company on the floor before the Wizengamot. When he spotted Harry, his dark eyes widened for a moment in his pale face. Harry met his gaze for a moment before turning his own eyes back to the high benches.  
  
The Aurors on either side of Snape brought him forward and pushed him, not too roughly, into the chair, and the chains slithered up over his arms and around his chest.   
  
Anger burned in Harry’s gut, but he showed none of it. He could have removed the bindings, of course, but it was to his advantage if questions about his power or rebelliousness didn’t cross the minds of the Wizengamot today.  
  
Arthur spoke again. “Mr. Snape, you’ve been brought before us on charges of aiding and abetting He Wh-that is, Lord Voldemort. It is alleged that you betrayed the trust of Hogwarts’ late Headmaster Albus Dumbledore and returned to the side of darkness just before the battle in which both Dumbledore and Voldemort died. What say you to these charges?”  
  
Snape looked up at the Wizengamot. “You have my statement. I have nothing to add to it.”  
  
Harry waited a respectful moment, then said, “However, I do.”  
  
“So we have seen,” Madame Bones said disapprovingly, rifling through a pile of newspapers at her side. Harry fought a smile.  
  
“Yes,” Ainsley Divot grumbled. “Was it really necessary to go to the papers, Harry?”  
  
“The press is entitled to the truth,” Harry said politely but loudly. “I’m sure no one on the Wizengamot wants to keep the facts from the public.”  
  
“Of course not, but really, Mr. Potter,” Madame Bones said. “This sort of … lurid publicity isn’t very helpful.” She held up the Daily Prophet so Harry (and Snape) could see the top headline: “Boy Who Lived Defends Former Death Eater: ‘Snape Is Innocent and I Can Prove It!’  
  
Harry sensed Snape stiffen in his chair.  
  
“And this!” Divot said, holding up Witches Weekly and reading from the front page. “‘Harry Potter calls Snape a Hero!’ Really, Harry.”  
  
“I apologise for my precipitate actions,” Harry said smoothly. “I admit I was startled in Ollivander’s by what I mistakenly saw as Gestapo tactics on the part of the Ministry’s Aurors.” He paused to allow the shocked mutters from the gallery to be heard. “I overreacted, I confess, but I was disturbed, and it so happened that Rita Skeeter was the first person I encountered on leaving Ollivander’s shop. It … I’m afraid the story, and my own concern, simply spilled out.”  
  
“Hm.” Crowther said dubiously.   
  
“Spilled out and all over the place,” Divot said. “It’s all I’ve been hearing on the WWN as well: Harry Potter says Ministry has maligned former professor, Boy Who Lived wages ‘Save Snape’ campaign…”  
  
“Divot, please,” Crowther snapped.  
  
“DeeVOH, if you don’t mind, Crowther,” Divot murmured.  
  
A few people in the gallery tittered. Harry said nothing. That part of his job was done. He waited until the panel had settled, putting the newspapers aside.  
  
“Is there any actual evidence of Professor Snape’s treachery?” he asked. “I’ve heard no word of it, if some has been found. Perhaps the council could enlighten me.”  
  
“I’ve seen no hard evidence,” Divot admitted.  
  
“Nor have I,” Arthur echoed.  
  
Crowther ignored them, leaning forward to speak directly to Harry. “He vanished before the last battle and has been believed dead for six months.”  
  
“That’s unusual evidence for convicting someone of treason,” Harry said. “I’ve been pretty much invisible to the wizarding world for three months; should I expect to be brought on trial before this learned body at some point just because of that?”  
  
“It’s not the same thing,” Kingsley insisted. “Snape has Death Eater ties.”  
  
“Professor Snape had Dumbledore’s complete trust,” Harry said. He caught a glimpse of bushy brown hair high in the gallery; he was pleased, though not surprised, that Hermione had attended, but didn’t dare try to signal her. There was nothing she could do now anyway.  
  
“That is true,” Arthur Weasley echoed, then flushed when Crowther and Kingsley glared at him. “Well, it is.”  
  
“And I can vouch that that trust never failed,” Harry said, feeling the issue coming to the point. He hoped he’d figured this right, but he knew that action, not planning, was his strong suit.   
  
“We’d be happy to take the word of our greatest surviving war hero,” Crowther said smoothly. “But we must answer to all the wizarding world for what we do here. Are you willing to take veritaserum and then testify?”  
  
Harry nodded. “Of course.”  
  
A murmur buzzed through the gallery.  
  
“Madame Minister?” Crowther deferred to Madame Bones.  
  
“It’s a reasonable request.” She waved a hand. “Arthur, if you’d fetch it, please.”  
  
Arthur Weasley disappeared into the back of the gallery.  
  
Harry glanced down at Snape, who was staring straight ahead, his face white and set. He longed to say something to him but knew better than to do anything to crack the masks each of them were wearing. For an instant he thought he understood that aspect of Dumbledore’s behavior here, when the headmaster had defended him. Impartial justice simply looked better.  
  
  
  
Arthur came out onto the floor with a tiny glittering glass phial, which he unstoppered and handed, with an apologetic look, to Harry.  
  
Without hesitation, Harry opened his mouth wide and placed three drops on his tongue so that everyone in the gallery could see. He closed his mouth and handed the bottle back to Arthur, who hurried back upstairs to his seat.  
  
“Now, Mr. Potter,” Madame Bones began. “What exactly makes you so certain Professor Snape isn’t a traitor?”  
  
Harry swallowed, tasting the veritaserum. “For that I need to tell you what happened on the field of the final battle. I don’t mean to bore you with information you already may know, but many of you were not present, and in any case I believe I was the only witness to Dumbledore’s last words.” He lent the faintest emphasis to the last three words, and a hum of surprise rose from the gallery.  
  
The Wizengamot exchanged looks.  
  
“It should be taking effect just about now,” Arthur said nervously.  
  
Harry felt the warmth of the stuff trickling through him, and he took a deep breath.  
  
“Very well,” Madame Bones said, settling back and placing her clasped hands on the podium. “Mr. Potter, please tell us.”  
  
“Well, Headmaster Dumbledore and I were out on the field, in the thick of it, trying to make our way to Voldemort. There were … there was a lot of confusion, a lot of dead and dying people. When we found Voldemort, in the ruins of an old tower, Dumbledore pulled me aside for a moment.  
  
“‘Try for his eyes,’ Dumbledore told me. ‘His vision will be weakened.’ Of course I did exactly what he said, even though I didn’t know why we should do it. We came upon him and … he didn’t see us. We were in front of him and he was raging and casting spells wildly, but he never saw us. Dumbledore and I both cast at the same time.” He forbore to say which spell; these people wouldn’t want to face that.  
  
“It was probably too much magic in one spot, and the building was ruinous anyway. The tower came down on top of him and us. I was knocked down. A part of the wall hit me, hurt my foot. When I could get up, I saw that Voldemort was dead. Destroyed, I should say. I made my way over to Dumbledore.  
  
“I could see he was almost … gone. He waved for me to come closer and I did. I asked him if I could do anything for him.   
  
“He said, ‘Find Severus. He created the potion that blinded Voldemort so we could destroy him. He is in danger. The surviving Death Eaters may yet discover that he betrayed them and their leader.’”  
  
Harry looked up at the Wizengamot. “I … I was surprised. I was … Professor Snape and I were not friends. I said to Dumbledore, ‘Snape?’ And he said, ‘Severus has made this victory possible, Harry. We could not have defeated Voldemort without Severus. Find him. See that his actions are known. See that he is honored as he should be. As you will be. I am very proud of you both.’”  
  
Harry lowered his eyes. “That was the last thing Dumbledore said before he … passed.”  
  
Snape sat with his head bowed, unmoving, as the murmur from the gallery swelled in wonder and surprise.  
  
“Quiet!” Madame Bones rose to her feet, waving her monocle around for attention. “I ask that those present  _please_  be silent!”  
  
The racket faded. Harry waited, unmoving, examining the thoughtful faces of the Wizengamot, radiating confidence.  
  
They conferred surprisingly briefly before Amelia Bones again rose to her feet.  
  
“In the absence of hard evidence to the contrary, the Wizengamot certainly would not dream of doubting the words of the two greatest wizards and heroes of our age.” Madame Bones waved her wand, and the chains fell from Snape’s body. “Mr. Snape, you stand acquitted of any and all charges, and are free to go.”  
  
Snape got up, a trifle unsteady, and moved around the chair, on the opposite side from Harry. Harry followed him out, willing him to hurry while at the same time not wanting to look like they were fleeing; the noise and chatter increased once more behind them, only to be cut off when Harry slammed the iron door on the council room.  
  
Snape sped up and Harry followed him, not bothering to try to speak while they were still in what both considered unfriendly territory.   
  
Only once they were outside the Ministry on the streets of Muggle London did Harry stop Snape with a touch on the arm.  
  
The man turned to face him while Harry dug into his robes.  
  
“Here.” He shoved the box containing Snape’s wand at him. Then really  _looked_  at Snape – and froze.  
  
Ghost-white, Snape fumbled the box open and scrabbled the wand out, glaring with narrow-eyed rage at Harry. “You …” The word came out a hiss of loathing.  
  
“Wh…” Faced with such an inexplicable reaction, Harry was dumbstruck.  
  
“You manipulative … underhanded … lying  _bastard_.” Snape’s face was blotched with furious red.  
  
“Huh?”  
  
“Dumbledore told you!”  
  
“No, he—”  
  
“You  _knew_. You knew all along I wasn’t a traitor, yet you challenged me and questioned me—”  
  
“Snape—” Harry vaguely realised passersby were staring at them, then circling them widely and hurrying away.  
  
Snape snarled, “What the fuck did you want from me? The sex? The  _omelets?_  Or did you plan to gloat, to grind your heel in my face once I’d decided you could be trusted, that you were—”  
  
“Shut  _up_  a minute!” Harry grabbed him, spinning him around, but Snape jerked himself free, shaking with anger, and pointed his wand at Harry, hand trembling.  
  
Instead of backing off, Harry leaned into Snape, stunned but determined.   
  
“God damn it,” he said, low. “Shut up and listen. You owe me. I saved your life. Twice now. You  _owe_  me.”  
  
Teeth gritted, seething, Snape clenched his fist around his wand, then lowered it.  
  
Harry growled, “You’re going to come with me and do one thing, then I won’t say another bloody word or bother you again. But you’ll do this. You owe it to me.”  
  
Without waiting for acquiescence, Harry grabbed Snape’s arm, yanked him close, and disapparated.  
  


* * *

  
  
At Godric’s Hollow, Harry released Snape’s arm and opened the front door, standing aside. Snape strode in, still fuming, almost visibly smoking with anger, and stopped in the front hall, fists clenched.  
  
“In here.” Harry led the way into his study and went behind his desk. He opened the locked drawer and pulled out Dumbledore’s pensieve, thumping it onto the table as if it weren’t immeasurably precious.   
  
“Now. Do you know of any way to cheat a pensieve?”  
  
Snape simply glared at him from the doorway.  
  
“A pensieve won’t accept a false memory. Right?” Harry insisted, taking Snape’s stubborn silence as agreement to what they both knew.  
  
He took in a calming breath and touched his wand to his temple, drawing out a single silvery strand and letting it coil in the shallow stone bowl.   
  
Next, Harry pointed to the desk chair, noticing that his own hand was a little unsteady too.  
  
“Sit the fuck down and  _look_  at it.”   
  
Snape stormed around the desk and sat, bending over the pensieve. Harry put his wand away, knowing what Snape would see – the brief scene he’d thought about all morning long while waiting to see the Wizengamot.  
  


* * *

  
  
Harry lay on his back on the damp grass, blood in his eyes, stunned and aching all over, buzzing with pain in the aftermath of the spell he and Dumbledore had cast and the avalanche of stone it had caused. He sat up, his leg throbbing in agony, and groped for his wand, then employed a lifting spell to shift the debris, groaning involuntarily as he slid his crushed foot free. He cast a quick binding spell on it before crawling over to Dumbledore, lying supine on the grass a few feet away.  
  
“Harry…” Dumbledore’s voice, like his gaze, soft and crumbling as dust, made tears spring to Harry’s eyes. He bent over the aged wizard, seeing no injuries but sensing in Dumbledore’s aura that his time could be measured in no more than minutes. The noises of the battlefield, shouts and cries and blasts of magic, seemed distant and unimportant.  
  
“Headmaster…” Harry wiped blood and tears from his eyes – realised his glasses were lost – and touched Dumbledore’s shoulder, helpless. “He … he’s dead, headmaster. We did it.” He spotted Dumbledore’s wand nearby and picked it up, replacing it clumsily in the headmaster’s loose grip, wrapping his cold, wrinkled fingers around the handle.  
  
“Harry…” Dumbledore gasped, the spark fading from his grey eyes as a fragile smile touched his lips. “Well done.”  
  
And Dumbledore was gone.  
  


* * *

  
  
Harry sat on the edge of the desk and waited while Snape blinked, then glanced up at him. He held Harry’s gaze for no more than a moment, then dropped his eyes and swallowed.   
  
Anger erased by that look, Harry shrugged, apologetic. “I didn’t think through how you’d react, that you’d think I’d lied to you. I was just trying to come up with a way of getting you off.”  
  
Another cautious glance upward. “Y-you lied.”  
  
Harry nodded. “But not to you.”  
  
Snape looked up again, able to hold Harry’s gaze, to reveal his own surprise. “You took veritaserum.”  
  
“So? You know as well as I do it’s not impossible to resist veritaserum. I am good at some things.” He smiled hesitantly, still not quite able to read Snape’s expression. “I expected it, so I prepared for it.”  
  
“Th-then you...”  
  
“Made it up.” Harry nodded. “I thought I did a good job, too. It wasn’t too sappy, was it?”  
  
“No. I mean ... you lied to the Ministry for me.”  
  
“Well…” Harry squinted into the metaphorical distance. “Lied is a strong word. I … er … fictionalized the truth a bit. I’m sure Dumbledore would have said something like that, if he’d had time.”  
  
The wondering eyes narrowed. “You believe me.”  
  
“Well, your reaction outside the Ministry was pretty convincing.” Harry rubbed his bruised arm ruefully.  
  
Snape laughed, an incredulous sound.   
  
“Er, sorry about the … evil overlord behavior there, by the way,” Harry added.  
  
“I wasn’t exactly amenable to cool reason.” Snape shook his head. “You believe me.”  
  
“Yeah.” Harry shrugged again.   
  
“For what reason?” Snape demanded, sounding a bit sharper, more like his old self.  
  
“No  _reason_ ,” Harry said. “I just do.”  
  
“Stupid, idiotic, noble pollyanna fool of a Gryffindor ...”  
  
“And that’s  _exactly_  why you came to me in the first place,” Harry said.  
  
Snape opened his mouth to argue. Then shut it. Harry basked in that for a moment, then asked gently:  
  
“Are you hungry?”  
  
Snape nodded, rubbing his face tiredly with both palms.   
  
“I need to wash the stench of the Ministry holding cells off of me first.” He went into the hall, stopping at the foot of the stairs. Harry didn’t move.  
  
Snape turned. “Aren’t you going to offer to help?”  
  
Harry started. “I didn’t know you wanted me to.”  
  
Snape sneered, the expression almost affectionate. “Pouting is most unbecoming behavior in an evil overlord, Potter.”  
  
Harry got up. “Well, I’m new at it.” He followed Snape upstairs.  
  


* * *

  
  
That night, just when he thought Snape was close enough to sleep that he might answer unguardedly, Harry said into his ear:  
  
“You’re going to leave, aren’t you?”  
  
He counted five seconds of silence before Snape said:  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Harry nodded. Then, realizing Snape couldn’t see it with his back against Harry’s chest, he lied, “I understand,” and closed his eyes.  
  


* * *

  
  
“What will you do?”  
  
Snape looked up the road as if he were going to walk. “I don’t know. Unlike you I’ve neither money nor reputation to sustain me.”  
  
“You’ve got skills,” Harry said. “Also unlike me.”   
  
Snape didn’t answer; his forgoing the opportunity to insult Harry seemed almost a compliment.  
  
“And you won’t accept charity.”  
  
“The past three weeks has been nothing but my acceptance of charity, Potter.”  
  
Harry said nothing, hoping, and after a moment Snape’s head tilted.  
  
“Well, perhaps not  _nothing_  but that.”  
  
Harry chuckled. “I think I needed to help you as much as you needed help. And now you’re off. Leaving the nest.” He shook his head, amazed at himself, that he felt bereaved. He fidgeted a little before blurting, “I know I don’t have to tell you to be watchful, but will you let me say it anyway? I’ll feel better.”  
  
“I would have been disappointed if you hadn’t.” Snape continued to gaze into the distance; the morning fog was just burning off, and it promised to be a cold, clear day. A perfect day for a surgical separation, Harry thought.  
  
“I’m well aware Lucius and Bellatrix will try to find me again,” Snape went on. “Although your helpful tips to the Ministry should ensure that they’re kept on the run by Aurors for at least a few months.”  
  
“I feel like your mother,” Harry cracked.  
  
“I beg to differ. You don’t feel at all like my mother.”   
  
“Ha ha. I know you won’t ask me for help—” Harry began.  
  
“I’ve done it once,” Snape admitted. “It wasn’t a complete disaster.”  
  
Harry forced a grin. “Then do it again, will you, if you need to?”  
  
Snape looked at him gravely, unspoken words clashing in his dark eyes.  
  
“Take care,” Harry said, not letting himself say all the other things – not to a man who couldn’t even commit to the possibility of speaking to him again.  
  
Eyes still on Harry’s, Snape spoke the magic words, disapparated and was gone.  
  
Harry stared at the empty space where he’d been. Empty.  
  
 _It wouldn’t have worked out anyway._  
  
He went back inside.  
  


* * *

  
  
“Taking up gardening?”  
  
On his knees next to the well, Harry jumped, stopping his hand halfway to his wand as he recognised Snape’s sarcastic tone.  
  
“Or are you praying to the god of the nexi? There isn’t one, you know.”  
  
Harry pushed himself to his feet and turned around, biting down on a grin.  
  
Snape wore new robes, held a fat, leather-bound, gold-cornered book under one arm and looked as delightfully pissy as ever.  
  
“I thought I might learn more … sort of hands on,” Harry admitted.  
  
“Typical. Why stand on the shoulders of giants –” Snape lifted up the book – “when you can huddle on the ground with your hands in the dirt?”  
  
“I have my methods.” Harry brushed the dirt from his hands to his jeans, then from his jeans to the ground. Then, again, from his re-dirtied hands to his jeans. Then he gave up and sneered at Snape’s smirk.   
  
“You’re trying to make me laugh, aren’t you?”  
  
Harry didn’t deign to answer that. “What brings you here?”  
  
Snape held out the book. “I discovered this in the garret of the potions seller whose quality of inventory I am currently in the process of vastly improving.” The cover read “Ley Lines: A Study” by Dr. Hosmer Hollygarden.  
  
Harry reached out eagerly. “I’ve heard of Dr. Hollygarden. He’s–”  
  
Snape yanked the book out of reach. “Not before you’ve cleaned the grime from your grubby fingers, Potter. This book is a rare and wonderful work of scholarship.”  
  
Harry dropped his hands, wondering about the likelihood of Snape’s finding it in anyone’s garret.  _Some things oughtn’t be questioned._  “Thank you. How are … things?”  
  
“Tolerable,” Snape admitted. “The work is pedestrian, the shop medieval, the custom hopelessly ignorant.”  
  
“Sounds like you’re in your element,” Harry ventured. “Knockturn Alley?”  
  
Snape nodded. “It has the added advantage of being the clearing house for any and all information on the movements of the few surviving Death Eaters.”  
  
Harry grinned. “I should have known you’d land on your feet.”  
  
“How is your research – and I use the term in the loosest sense – proceeding?”  
  
“Not so well I’m not happy to see another good source,” Harry said. “Thank you for bringing it.”  
  
Snape said nothing, in a particularly awkward way that made Harry’s chest tighten. Reminding himself, childishly, that he was a Gryffindor, he cleared his throat.  
  
“I was wondering something.”  
  
Surprisingly, Snape bit. “What?”   
  
“I was wondering why I … um … didn’t want you to leave.”  
  
Snape blinked, slowly. “That raises a related question.”  
  
“Which is?” Harry prompted, a thread of hope spiraling up his throat.  
  
“What in the names of the Founders is wrong with you that you could possibly feel that way.”  
  
“I think they’re the same question.”  
  
Snape’s head tilted a fraction. “You may be right.”  
  
“I came up with a sort of an answer.”  
  
“That you’re hopelessly in love with me?” Snape glared down at him, shifting the book from under his right arm to under his left, as if to free his wand hand for hexing.  
  
“No. The answer I came up with was that I could live without an answer. Again.”  
  
“But you can’t live without me?”  
  
“I can.” Harry smiled. “I’d rather not.”  
  
Snape blinked, then looked, a little wildly, around the yard, at the fence, the well, the trees – at anything, Harry guessed, that he thought couldn’t read the sudden light in his eyes. Finally his lips thinned and he glanced at Harry, sidelong, clearly aware he’d given himself away.  
  
“Your manners are atrocious. You might at least ask me inside and offer me a cup of tea.”  
  
Harry got up and brushed the dirt off his hands. “Would you like to come in and have a cup of tea?”  
  
“No, thank you,” Snape said primly. “I must get back.”  
  
Harry opened the back door and stood aside. “Get inside, Snape. The kettle’s already on and I was just about to put some blueberry scones in the oven.”  
  
Snape brushed past him, the contact brief, unnecessary. “I hope you plan to wash your hands first.”  
  
Harry grinned. Maybe this would work after all.   
  
  
  


The End


End file.
